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Machete

Musical Instrument
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

A small Portuguese guitar, precursor to the braguinha and ukulele

Detailed Definition
The machete appears in poetry as a maritime seed of global folk instruments; its journey from Madeira to Hawaii symbolizes cultural transmission, and poets use it to explore diaspora, adaptation, or the lightness of song carried across oceans.
Example
Example in poetry:
The machete’s four strings “sail from Madeira to Hawaii on waves of hope”; In a diasporic poem, its journey “is the seed of global folk music”; The instrument appears as “the ukulele’s grandfather, humble and bright”; A migration lyric uses machete to explore cultural adaptation.
Additional Notes
Machete—a small Portuguese guitar—traveled with Madeiran immigrants to Hawaii, becoming the ukulele; in poetry, it symbolizes maritime diaspora, cultural adaptation, and the lightness of song across oceans; students tracing global folk transmission should recognize it as a node in the network of string instruments that carry identity, memory, and hybridity through migration.
Also Known As
Machete guitar Portuguese machete
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