phonetic

  1. Adjective.  Relating to the sounds of spoken language.
  2. Adjective.  (linguistics) Relating to phones (as opposed to phonemes).
  3. Noun.  (context, linguistics) In such logographic writing systems as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a character (if any) that provides an indication of its pronunciation; ''contrasted with'' radical.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.