grapheme

(grafēm′)

noun

Linguis. a class consisting of all the allographs representing a given unit of a writing system, or all those representing a given phoneme

Origin: graph, a spelling, occurrence of an allograph (< -graph) + -eme

Related Forms:

See grapheme in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun
  1. A letter of an alphabet.
  2. All of the letters and letter combinations that represent a phoneme, as f, ph, and gh for the phoneme /f/.

Origin:

Origin: graph2

Origin: + -eme

.

Related Forms:

  • gra·pheˈmic (gră-fēˈmĭk) adjective
  • gra·pheˈmi·cal·ly adverb

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