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Accent
Etymology
French accent, Latin accentus ; ad + cantus a singing, canere to sing. See cant. For the verb: Old French accenter , French accentuer
Noun
- A superior force of voice or of articulative effort upon some particular syllable of a word or a phrase, distinguishing it from the others.
- Note: Many English words have two accents, the primary and the secondary; the primary being uttered with a greater stress of voice than the secondary; as in as'pira"tion, where the chief stress is on the third syllable, and a slighter stress on the first. Some words, as an'tiap'o-plec"tic, in-com'pre-hen'si-bil"i-ty, have two secondary accents.
- A mark or character used in writing, and serving to regulate the pronunciation; especially:
- (a) a mark to indicate the nature and place of the spoken accent;
- (b) a mark to indicate the quality of sound of the vowel marked; as, the French accents
- Note: In the ancient Greek the acute accent (´) meant a raised tone or pitch, the grave (`), the level tone or simply the negation of accent, the circumflex (~ or ^) a tone raised and then depressed. In works on elocution, the first is often used to denote the rising inflection of the voice; the second, the falling inflection; and the third (^), the compound or waving inflection. In dictionaries, spelling books, and the like, the acute accent is used to designate the syllable which receives the chief stress of voice.
- Modulation of the voice in speaking; manner of speaking or pronouncing; peculiar or characteristic modification of the voice; tone; as, a foreign accent; a French or a German accent
- Quotations
- Beguiled you in a plain accent. - Shakespeare, King Lear, II-ii
- A perfect accent - Thackeray
- The tender accent of a woman's cry. - Prior
- A word; a significant tone
- (In plural); expressions in general; speech.
- Quotations
- Winds! on your wings to Heaven her accents bear, / Such words as Heaven alone is fit to hear. - Dryden
- (Prosody): Stress laid on certain syllables of a verse.
- (Music): A regularly recurring stress upon the tone to mark the beginning, and, more feebly, the third part of the measure
- (Music): A special emphasis of a tone, even in the weaker part of the measure
- (Music): The rhythmical accent, which marks phrases and sections of a period
- (Music): The expressive emphasis and shading of a passage - J. S. Dwight
- (Mathematics): A mark placed at the right hand of a letter, and a little above it, to distinguish magnitudes of a similar kind expressed by the same letter, but differing in value, as y', y''
- (Mathematics - Trigonometry): A mark at the right hand of a number, indicating minutes of a degree, seconds, etc.; as, 12' 27'', i. e., twelve minutes twenty seven seconds
- (Engineering): A mark used to denote feet and inches; as, 6' 10'' is six feet ten inches
- Paint, wallpaper, or similar coating that contrasts with the surrounding region
Transitive Verb
Imperfect and past participle: accented
Present participle: accenting
- To express the accent of (either by the voice or by a mark); to utter or to mark with accent.
- To mark emphatically; to emphasize.
Translations
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