Home › Glossary › Letter R

ribbons

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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

Long narrow strips of cloth used for decoration or tying things.

Detailed Definition
Ribbons are decorative strips of fabric, often used in gifts, clothing, or adornment. Here the word helps contrast ordinary pretty objects with the poem’s more mysterious "Key of Dreams."
Example
Example in poetry:
“Rarer than books and ribbons and beads bright to see,” lists small treasured objects; ribbons may suggest adornment, ceremony, or childhood; Yeats’s “A Coat” uses clothing as a symbol of artistic identity; “red ribbons on the fence remembered those absent” gives the object communal meaning
Additional Notes
Although common in general, "ribbons" appears in a decorative list here and may be less immediate for some readers in this older poetic context.; Found in the poem, The Peddler by Charlotte Mew
Also Known As
streamers filaments strands tendrils
Skip to main content