phonetic

English · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

phonetic

  • /fəˈnɛt.ɪk/
  • [fəˈnɛɾ.ɪk] Canada, US
  • [fəˈneɾ.ɪk] Australia, New Zealand

Sounds like phenetic, fanatic (only in certain topolects with the met–mat merger)

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Latin phōnēticus, from Ancient Greek φωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós). By surface analysis, phone + -etic.

adjective

  1. not comparable Relating to the sounds of spoken language.
  2. not comparable Relating to phones (as opposed to phonemes).
  3. not comparable Relating to the spoken rather than written form of a word or name, as opposed to orthographic. All unfamiliar names have been transcribed in phonetic spelling.

noun phonetics

  1. In such writing systems as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a phono-semantic character that provides an indication of its pronunciation; contrasted with semantic (which is usually the radical). I suspect that 田 dien is the original character and true phonetic of the whole group.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: auditory, aural, code, sound, oral, phonic, phonemic, phonological, articulatory, acoustic, sonic, vocal, spoken, vocalic, sonant, phonatory

Translations

Every language

adj relating to sounds of spoken language

Españolfonético
Portuguêsfonético
Françaisphonétique
Deutschphonetisch
Italianofonetico
Ελληνικάφωνητικός fonitikós
Românăfonetic
Русскийфонети́ческий fonetíčeskij

adj linguistics: relating to phones

Españolfonético
Portuguêsfonético
Françaisphonétique
Deutschphonetisch
Românăfonetic

noun component of a phono-semantic compound that indicates pronunciation

日本語音符 onpu
中文聲旁 /声旁 shēngpáng, 聲符 /声符 shēngfú, 形聲偏旁 /形声偏旁 xíngshēng piānpáng

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"phonetic." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/phonetic. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

phonetic. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/phonetic

Chicago

"phonetic." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/phonetic.

BibTeX
@misc{phonetic_2026,
  title = {phonetic},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/phonetic},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}