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orient

Diction
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

Eastern; from the East. In older poetry, it often suggests something exotic, bright, or precious.

Detailed Definition
In early modern and poetic English, orient can mean “eastern” or “of the East,” and it often carries a sense of luxury or brilliance. Here it helps describe the pearls as especially fine and exotic, not just ordinary white pearls.
Example
Example in poetry:
Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” praises “orient pearl” in a woman’s teeth: “Those cherries fairly do enclose / Of orient pearl a double row”; Orient here means eastern, lustrous, or pearl-like in older diction; The term reflects historical European language about eastern luxury and should be read with that context; “An orient gleam on shells” uses the older sense of iridescence
Additional Notes
In the line “Of orient pearl a double row,” orient is an older poetic word many modern readers may not immediately know.; Found in the poem, The Cherry by Richard Allison
Other Meanings of “orient”
Also Known As
Oriental Eastward Directional Guiding Indies Rising
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