Allophone meaning
The definition of an allophone is an alternative sound for a letter or group of letters in a word.
An example of an allophone is the short sound of the "a" in mat and the long sound of the "a" in mad.
noun
A predictable phonetic variant of a phoneme. For example, the aspirated t of top, the unaspirated t of stop, and the tt (pronounced as a flap) of batter are allophones of the English phoneme /t/.
noun
Any of the variant forms of a phoneme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds.
The relatively short (a) of mat and the relatively long (a) of mad are allophones.
noun
A person whose native language is other than French or English.
noun
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(Canada) A person whose mother tongue is neither English nor French.
noun
Origin of allophone
- allo– phone(me)
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- allo- + -phone
From Wiktionary