phoneme.

A basic sound category whose substitution can distinguish words or meanings in a particular language.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• phoneme inventory
• phoneme contrast
• vowel phoneme

On the page

The difference between the initial sounds of pin and bin reflects a phoneme contrast in English.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal / analytical. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Singular phoneme; plural phonemes. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Dictionary definition verifies a language-specific contrastive sound category. Realizations and letters are distinguished in original notes. Writing functions: language analysis, conceptual distinction.