phonetics
n. uncountablen. the study of the sounds people make when they speak. It looks at how we produce these sounds and how we hear them.
n. the branch of linguistics that studies the physical sounds of human speech. It examines the physiological production, acoustic properties, and auditory perception of these sounds.
She is studying phonetics to improve her pronunciation.
The linguistics course covers both phonetics, which looks at physical speech sounds, and phonology, which studies sound systems.
A thorough grounding in articulatory phonetics allows speech therapists to precisely identify which vocal tract movements are causing a patient's pronunciation difficulties.
From phonetic + -s.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Takes a singular verb despite the plural form.
Last updated April 24, 2026