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meads

Noun
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

An archaic or poetic term for meadows or rich grassy fields, frequently used in pastoral poetry to evoke peaceful rural landscapes.

Detailed Definition
A meadow is familiar, but the plural poetic form “meads” is more old-fashioned and literary. Keats uses it to give the landscape a pastoral, ballad-like feel.
Example
Example in poetry:
Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci”: “I met a lady in the meads, / Full beautiful—a faery’s child”; Meads is a poetic plural for meadows or grassy fields; In pastoral verse, “cows moved through the meads at dusk” suggests open rural abundance; The archaic-sounding plural can lend a ballad or Romantic atmosphere
Additional Notes
The plural form “meads” is a poetic, archaic word that many readers may not immediately recognize.; Found in the poem, La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats
Also Known As
pastures meadows fields glades
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