pronunce

Verb

pronounce (third-person singular simple present pronounces, present participle pronouncing, simple past and past participle pronounced)

1. (transitive) To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously.
   • Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […], down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
2. (transitive) To declare authoritatively, or as a formal expert opinion.
   • The doctor pronounced them legally dead.
   1. (transitive) To pronounce dead.
      • Despite resuscitative efforts, Mr. Gray was pronounced on 4/19/2015.2015, April 30, Carol H. Allan, David R. Fowler (medical examiners), Freddie Gray autopsy: excerpt from the report, published in The Baltimore Sun, June 24, 2015
3. (intransitive) To pass judgment.
   • The judge had pronounced often before, but never in front of such a crowd.
4. (transitive) To sound out (a word or phrase); to articulate.
   • They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.1869, Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, page 182
   1. (transitive, passive voice) To sound like.
      • The Icelandic double l in Eyjafjallajökull is pronounced tl.

See all 10 meanings of pronounce