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edgeless

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Without a sharp boundary or cutting edge; in poetry, it may suggest softness, continuity, or a form that seems to extend without clear limits.

Detailed Definition
Edgeless is a plain descriptive word, but it is unusual enough in this context because it suggests a knife that cannot cut. The detail reinforces the failed suicide attempt and the poem's grim irony.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Although his knife was edgeless” means it had no sharp cutting edge; “An edgeless moon rose through cloud” uses the adjective figuratively for a blurred outline; “The edgeless horizon merged sea and sky” creates softness and uncertainty; in a modern poem, “Her grief was edgeless, without a boundary” turns physical lack of edge into emotional vastness
Additional Notes
The quoted line uses edgeless in a literal but uncommon way, and readers may pause because it is not a frequent everyday adjective.; Found in the poem, Suicide by William Ernest Henley
Also Known As
blunt dull unsharpened
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