Word.ws English Dictionary

word sound

word sound noun: a particular essence or quality evoked by a spoken word.

Noun

word sound (plural word sounds)

  1. (uncommon) A particular essence or quality evoked by a spoken word.
    • Browning has been called unmusical, and, judged by common rules, I suppose his verse lacks melody; but for me, there is always in it a sort of spiritual harmony, which overrules the mere word-sound, and renders him one of the most musical of poets.1852, Grace Greenwood, Greenwood Leaves, A Collection of Sketches and Letters, page 293
    • Word sound is musical. It is characterized by the two leading essentials of a musical sound, rhythm and melody, while yet the other elements, time and quality of sound, are not excluded.1873, I.N. Carleton, W.B. Dwight (editors), The Connecticut School Journal, page 9

Examples of word sound in a sentence

  • Hence, whatever may be the sense in which the word sound may be used, there is no doubt of the fact that it is caused by the vibrations of the sounding body.1917, Atul Chandra Datta, A Text-Book of Sound, page 1:
  • In spite of this, the succession of word sounds leads to the formation of certain phonic formations and sound phenomena or characters of a new type which could not be evoked by individual word sounds.1973, Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art, An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Literature: with an...
  • Word sound is that organizing factor which can “extract” the particular sequence (characteristic for the given notion) from the continuous categorical sign series.1999, Tatyana Glezerman, Victoria I. Balkoski, Language, Thought, and the Brain, page 45:

Forms of word sound

pluralword sounds

Questions about word sound

What does word sound mean?
Word sound means a particular essence or quality evoked by a spoken word.
How do you use word sound in a sentence?
Hence, whatever may be the sense in which the word sound may be used, there is no doubt of the fact that it is caused by the vibrations of the sounding body.
What part of speech is word sound?
Word sound is a noun.
What is the plural of word sound?
The plural of word sound is word sounds.

Words near word sound in the dictionary

  1. word separators
  2. word sketch
  3. word sketches
  4. word snake
  5. word snakes
  6. word sound
  7. word sounds
  8. word space
  9. word spaces
  10. word square
  11. word squares

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: word sound (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “word sound.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/word_sound. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.