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Hiatus

Prosody
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

The occurrence of two vowels in adjacent syllables without a connecting consonant

Detailed Definition
Hiatus appears when consecutive vowels belong to separate syllables rather than forming a diphthong, as in "cooperate" or the phrase "seeing animals." In poetry, hiatus creates opportunities for emphasis and metrical flexibility; poets use it deliberately to avoid monotonous rhythms, extend syllable counts, or create prosodic complexity that challenges readers' expectations and draws attention to specific words or phrases.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” the line “Thou dearest Perdita” contains hiatus between “Thou” and “dearest” (vowel-vowel contact without elision); In Milton’s “Lycidas,” “Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more” features hiatus between “ye” and “laurels”; In Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness” shows hiatus between “Thou” and “still”; In Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” “Thy voice is on the rolling air” contains hiatus between “Thy” and “voice”; In Donne’s “Holy Sonnet X,” “Death, be not proud” avoids elision between “Death” and “be,” creating a deliberate hiatus for emphasis; In Spenser’s “Epithalamion,” “Ye learned sisters” presents hiatus between “Ye” and “learned,” resisting elision for solemnity.
Additional Notes
Hiatus refers to the occurrence of two vowel sounds in adjacent syllables without an intervening consonant, especially across word boundaries (e.g., "to obey"). In classical prosody, hiatus was often avoided through elision or synizesis to maintain metrical smoothness. In English poetry, hiatus can create a deliberate pause or breathiness, used for emphasis or emotional effect. While not inherently metrical, hiatus impacts phrasing and rhythm, and its presence or absence reveals a poet’s attention to sonic texture. Contrast with diphthong (a single syllable with two vowel glides) and syneresis (forced merging of vowels into one syllable).
Also Known As
vocalic hiatus
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