noun
- vowel sounds that maintain a single, unchanging quality throughout their pronunciation
Usage: linguistics; phonetics
Examples
- The vowel sounds in ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ are monophthongs.
- English has several monophthongs, including the ‘a’ sound in ‘father’.
- Students learning phonetics must distinguish between monophthongs and diphthongs.
- The ‘ee’ sound in ‘see’ is considered a monophthong in most dialects.
- Monophthongs are easier to pronounce than complex vowel combinations.
- The linguistics professor explained how monophthongs differ across languages.