Pronunciations appear in parentheses after boldface entry words. If a word has more than one pronunciation, the first pronunciation is usually more common than the other, but often they are equally common. Pronunciations are shown after inflections and related words where necessary.
Stress is the relative degree of emphasis that a word’s syllables are spoken with. An unmarked syllable has the weakest stress in the word. The strongest, or primary, stress is indicated with a bold mark (′). A lighter mark (′) indicates a secondary level of stress. The stress mark follows the syllable it applies to. Words of one syllable have no stress mark because there is no other stress level that the syllable can be compared to.
The key on page vii shows the pronunciation symbols used in this book. To the right of the symbols are words that show how the symbols are pronounced. The letters whose sound corresponds to the symbols are shown in boldface.
The symbol (ǝ) is called schwa. It represents a vowel with the weakest level of stress in a word. The schwa sound varies slightly according to the vowel it represents or the sounds around it:
a·bun·dant (ǝ-bŭn′dǝnt) |
mo·ment (mō′mǝnt) |
civ·il (sĭv′ǝl) |
grate·ful (grāt′fǝl) |