Common Senses: Phon ("Sound")

Learn these words that derive from the Greek root phone, meaning "sound."

Here are links to the complete set of Common Senses lists:
Hearing: Phon / Aud / Son
Sight: Vid, Vis / Spec, Spect, Spic / Op, Ops, Opt
Touch: Path / Sent, Sens / Tact, Tang
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. cacophony
    loud confusing disagreeable sounds
    The persistent cacophony of grinding and banging and crushing has been replaced by the renewed soundtrack of songbirds. New York Times (Feb 22, 2014)
    kakos ("bad") + phone
  2. euphony
    any pleasing and harmonious sounds
    The ugly cacophony of our mother-tongue here in the north melts on her tongue into the sweet and mellow euphony of Italian and Hindu speech. Francke, Kuno
    eu ("good") + phone
    As is clear from this example sentence, cacophony and euphony are antonyms.
  3. symphony
    a large orchestra
    That piece, “Become Ocean,” made its world premiere at the symphony last year and won the Pulitzer Prize for music last month. Seattle Times (May 4, 2014)
    syn ("together") + phone
    A symphony typically orchestra consists of about 100 musicians on string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments, all playing together.
  4. antiphony
    a verse or song to be chanted or sung in response
    The Lamas with their deep voices were intoning the prayers while the lesser priests answered with their antiphonies. Ossendowski, Ferdinand
    anti ("against") + phone
  5. polyphony
    music arranged in parts for several voices or instruments
    Fusing elements of Renaissance polyphony and Baroque counterpoint with the gauzy, layered chords of the French Impressionists, it is music of beauty, mystery and power. New York Times (May 25, 2018)
    poly ("many") + phone
  6. homophone
    a word pronounced the same with another meaning or spelling
    The words wright and write are homophones, a phonological coincidence. The Guardian (Jun 19, 2013)
    homo ("same") + phone
  7. telephone
    electronic equipment that transmits sound over distances
    Mortimer auditioned candidates for the role by telephone, so he could experience their voices only. BBC (May 23, 2014)
    tele ("distant") + phone
  8. saxophone
    a single-reed woodwind with a conical bore
    The trombone or sousaphone often provides the bass lines and riffs, while duelling trumpets and saxophone add the often complex melody lines and improvised solos. The Guardian (Aug 23, 2012)
    Adolphe Sax was a Belgian instrument maker who invented the saxophone in the 19th century. The word saxophoneis an eponym, a word derived from the name of a person.
  9. xylophone
    a bright-toned wooden bar instrument played with hard-headed mallets
    From the bog the frogs sounded like a continuously and lightly-struck xylophone. Hergesheimer, Joseph
    xylo ("wood") + phone
  10. dysphonia
    speech disorder attributable to a disorder of phonation
    But his worst symptom was dysphonia; he would try to articulate one word, and find himself using another. Gaboriau, Émile
  11. phoneme
    a distinct speech sound in a particular language
    There is also a deeper layer of meaning in the phonemes--the very sound of the words themselves--which music can tap into, he says. BBC (May 25, 2014)
    A phoneme can be as small as the sound of one letter of the alphabet, such as "p" or "b," or it can be a letter combination like "sh" or "ch." A morpheme, on the other hand, is the smallest word part that conveys meaning. English morphemes include prefixes and suffixes (such as pre- and -ness), inflectional affixes (such as the "s" used to make a noun plural), and "free morphemes" that can stand alone, such as girl, strong, or blue.
  12. phonics
    teaching reading by associating letters with their sounds
    Readers need phonics to sound out unfamiliar words, but they also need vocabulary and general world knowledge to comprehend text. Salon (Sep 12, 2012)
    This system of teaching reading originated in 1844, but it did not become popular until more than sixty years later.
  13. phonogram
    any written symbol standing for a sound or syllable or morpheme or word
    The whole body of Chinese characters, then, may conveniently be divided up, for philological purposes, into pictograms, ideograms and phonograms. Various
    phone + gram (suffix forming nouns about instruments for recording or something written)
  14. phonology
    the study of the sound system of a given language
    In Phonology fifty different sounds are recognized, including simple and compound consonants, the vowels in different quantities, and the diphthongs. Various
    Phonology used to be called phonemics, because it was only concerned with phonemes, but nowadays, it can include analyses of larger linguistic forms where sound is important for meaning. Phonology is focused on theories about the structure of language, while phonetics is focused on the physical production and perception of speech.
  15. stereophonic
    designating sound transmission from two sources through two channels
    Whatever the particulars, these patients concluded that they lacked the resources to deal with the chaos, stereophonic screaming and exhaustion of raising twins. New York Times (Aug 10, 2011)
Created on Wed May 28 17:16:52 EDT 2014 (updated Tue Aug 20 14:40:10 EDT 2019)

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