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Short syllable

Sound
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 syllable pronounced with weaker stress or duration in metrical contexts

Detailed Definition
A short syllable is a phonetic unit pronounced quickly or with little emphasis, forming the light element in metrical feet across poetic traditions; in quantitative meters (Greek/Latin), it denotes brief duration, while in accentual meters (English), it typically lacks stress.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Latin, "a" in "amō" is a short syllable; In Greek, the epsilon in "πέτρα" (pétra) is short; In English, the "a" in "above" is often unstressed and short; The "i" in "habit" is a short syllable in poetic scansion
Additional Notes
Short syllable: A syllable that contains a short quantity vowel and is the basic unit for the unstressed position in metrical feet like the iamb (u−) or anapest (uu−).
Also Known As
Brevity syllable short unit clipped syllable Breve
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