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snell

Dialect
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 Scottish and northern dialect word meaning sharp, bitter, and biting; typically describes piercing winter winds or weather.

Detailed Definition
In Scots, snell often describes cold wind or weather as piercing and severe. Burns uses it to intensify the harshness of the approaching winter.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Baith snell an’ keen!” — Scots dialect, where snell means sharp, biting, or severe; the phrase may describe a cutting wind as well as sharp perception; Robert Burns frequently uses Scots vocabulary to capture local voice and climate; snell’s compact sound suits the sting of frost or wind; in standard English, “keen” preserves part of its sense but not its dialect character
Additional Notes
“snell” is a Scots word in the weather description and is not widely used in modern English.; Found in the poem, To a Mouse by Robert Burns
Also Known As
sharp quick swift
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