Home › Glossary › Letter T

Tundra

Landscape
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

A cold, treeless plain where low plants grow above frozen subsoil.

Detailed Definition
A tundra gives poetry an expansive, spare landscape of mosses, lichens, low shrubs, wind, and long light. Its apparent emptiness can be misleading, since it supports resilient plants and migrating animals in a brief growing season. Poets may use its wide horizons and frozen ground to explore endurance, vulnerability, solitude, or the delicate balance of a harsh climate.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Across the tundra, low flowers held their color against the wind,” showing life adapted to a harsh treeless plain; A poet can use the tundra’s vast openness to make one human figure seem small and exposed; “The tundra hummed with insects beneath the pale midnight sun,” correcting the idea that such landscapes are empty; Set migrating caribou across the tundra to explore seasonal movement and endurance
Additional Notes
Tundra evokes exposure, silence, and endurance: its frozen subsoil, or permafrost, limits tree growth while supporting mosses, lichens, grasses, and low shrubs. In poetry, it may symbolize barrenness, resilience, climate, or a stark emotional landscape.
Also Known As
Arctic Plain Treeless Wasteland Polar Heath Frozen Steppe
Skip to main content