WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025
pho•nes•the•mic
(fō′nəs thē′mik),USA pronunciation adj. [Ling.]
- Linguistics(of a speech sound) shared by a set of echoic or symbolic words, as the sn- of sneer, snarl, snatch, snide, snitch, snoop, etc.
- apparently phon- + esth(etic) + -eme) + -ic phonestheme such a sound or group of sounds (coined by J. R. Firth in 1930
'phonesthemic' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):