Noun Accent Definition and Examples

Accent

/ˈaks(ə)nt/accentVerb/akˈsɛnt/

noun

A distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a particular country, area, or social class.

1. 'she never mastered the French accent'
2. 'When actors baulked at speaking lines in a foreign language - or their accents were execrable - native-speakers were brought in to play the parts.'
3. 'However, differences in dialect consist primarily of slight differences in accent or pronunciation and minor grammatical usages.'
4. 'Mass-media broadcasters spoke in the accents of the upper classes.'
5. 'Yet, although we share the same language, English accents still confuse the locals.'
6. 'I detected a strong British accent in her voice.'
7. 'The annual meeting of China's legislature is a jamboree of regional accents and languages.'
8. 'It is odd, yet moving, to hear Lechner singing the English translations of German texts with a thick German accent.'
9. '‘Some people with working class or regional accents are not getting the chances they deserve and that is a waste,’ she says.'
10. 'The moment he started speaking in that melodious voice with its slightly lilting accent and almost perfect enunciation she was lost in its music.'
11. 'The very sound of her voice, with that lovely lilting accent, warmed him.'
12. 'After reading, judges check on their pronunciation, accent, posture and eye contact.'
13. 'It is believed he was British but the suspect spoke in a Patois accent, the accent of Caribbean street language.'
14. 'All TV announcers had unbelievable upper class accents.'
15. 'The conversation veered towards language and accents.'
16. 'The incident highlighted a typically British obsession with accent and social class and reminded Scots that in some circles their more robust accents are considered a sign of aggression.'
17. 'With some exceptions, strong regional or Spanish accents are associated with working-class status.'
18. 'Most pirates of British origin would thus have had this distinctive accent.'
19. 'The whole country was a mixture of different languages and accents back then, especially in the rural areas.'
20. 'His lilting Anglo-Indian accent had the cadences of a lyre.'
21. 'But I don't care that he's really got an upper class accent.'

A distinct emphasis given to a syllable or word in speech by stress or pitch.

1. 'TO-mah-to, they called them in Calcutta, with the accent on the first syllable, making no distinction between singular or plural.'
2. 'Mania, they were told, is simply the Italian translation of the word obsession, and anyway it's pronounced with the accent on the second syllable.'
3. 'These aren't imported words with genuine umlauts, but retrospective accents denoting a junked hyphen as in microorganisms or coordinated.'
4. 'Furthermore, the narrator speaks with the words, accents, and intonations of Golyadkin himself.'
5. 'Also, the accent should be on the second syllable: a-SAH-a-na.'
6. 'I don't think I grasped much of the concept of where to place accents in the Spanish language, but oh well.'
7. 'Elegant accent marks can make any typical product name sound like a shimmering diamond mined from the fertile bowls of the finest dragon filled cave.'
8. 'Little accents, little umlauts, tiny apostrophes like snowflakes sting her cheeks.'
9. 'It's a neat trick to have a way to spell words containing both nasalization and crucially important tone without any accents or funny letters.'
10. 'After all, people who write in these languages on a computer want to use the correct accent marks.'
11. 'Modern Greek also retains from the ancient language a system of three pitch accents (acute, circumflex, grave).'
12. 'Moravec takes the opening of the first in a way that connects with Bartók's piano dances, with shifting accents.'
13. 'Riemann published editions of standard keyboard works in which agogic accents were marked with the sign ^.'
14. 'Rachmaninoff indicates that the tenor carries the melody by placing accents over each of its notes.'
15. 'The composer's intentions may be notated as dots, dashes, accents, and slurs.'
16. 'The rich tone and strong accents of Gabriel Beavers's solo bassoon were striking.'
17. 'Some of these have involved minutely detailed descriptions of snare drum accents and eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie rhythms.'
18. 'Syncopated staccato accents gradually drop into place on top of an extended droning chord.'
19. 'The displacement of the normal musical accent from a strong beat to a weak one.'
20. 'The use of unpredictable accents also can add to the rhythmic complexity of a musical work.'
21. 'By contrast, the three-beat group is subdivided as a hemiola with accents falling on beat 1 and the second half of beat 2.'

A special or particular emphasis.

1. 'The accent is on winning and making money, not developing New Zealand talent.'
2. 'The accent is on creating a simulated environment for the customer to feel at home.'
3. 'Computer dealers are finding that even machines that were considered ‘high end’ are being snapped up for use at home with the accent on value for money.'
4. 'The accent is on natural materials - wood and stone.'
5. 'Small schools have sprung up all over the country, laying accent on the quality of the relationship between teacher and student.'
6. 'Though there are sections on Welsh and Greek, the accent is on French, German, Spanish and Italian, each of which has a 24-lesson course attached.'
7. 'Again, this was simple food with the accent upon quality ingredients and a desire to avoid over-elaboration.'
8. 'The accent of the speech however, fell on the steps being taken by the government to reverse these social ills.'
9. 'The accent therefore had to fall on external action by the state, but of itself this did not require immediate and exact foreign policy choices.'
10. 'The accent is on comfort rather than sportiness and its no coincidence that it looks like an S-Class that shrunk in the wash.'
11. 'blue woodwork and accents of red'
12. 'Bright red is a bold accent in clusters of anemones and candy canes.'
13. 'A few plum accents can bring in a note of elegance to any room; try a throw pillow or two, or a plum lampshade with a fringe?'
14. 'She refused to meet his gaze, eyes resting instead on the gold accent of his navy blue coat, or the thick leather belt still decorating his broad chest.'
15. 'In the typical mix of femininity and sporty styling, such accents emphasize a modern femininity.'

verb

Emphasize (a particular feature)

1. 'The different vibrant and funky colours and ‘intelligent’ lighting perfectly accent the curtain wall and a high ceiling.'
2. 'Dark hair and even darker eyes accented his pale features and an amused smile touched his thin lips.'
3. 'You can accent a room's feature - such as a pipe or post - by painting it a different color from the rest of the room or de-emphasize it by painting it the same color.'
4. 'We all look to you to accent the positives and help us to eradicate the more negative events, and mostly you do achieve this.'
5. 'The mystique surrounding Cirque du Soleil is accented by the wonderment the show evokes from the audience.'
6. 'So my thought was to replace the flower over-abundance with a solid blue color to accent the nice yellow, by whatever means was the easiest and best way to accomplish this task.'
7. 'A tent sized mu-mu - hot orange and pink, accenting the contours of her big, round belly.'
8. 'Make art the focal point of your living room by accenting it with halogen spotlights.'
9. 'In consequence they strove to accent the competitive element and eliminate any attempt at showboating at every opportunity.'
10. 'His angular features were accented by a short bristly goatee, and a single black curl fell on his forehead.'
11. 'the quick tempo means there is less scope for accenting offbeat notes'
12. 'Ungerleider's sparse guitar style was accented with long bass solos.'
13. 'She accented every note just-short of perfectly, fading her voice before a few high notes and before an emphasized verse to add to the atmosphere of the song.'
14. 'Axis and Alignment is a jazz tapestry accented by intricate minimalist patterns and incredibly fluid changes, a perpetually shifting sonic picture of gentle enlightenment.'
15. 'The Latin rhythms of ‘Canzonetta Spangnuola’ were accented with flair and joy.'
16. '‘Golden Twig’ finds the group sliding easily into a lazily bouncy groove, with twangy guitars accenting a steady up-and-down lilt.'
17. 'The strings are used only to accent the melody, and any misgivings are quickly redeemed by yet another amazing guitar solo.'

noun

1. prominence of a syllable in terms of differential loudness, or of pitch, or length, or of a combination of these.

2. degree of prominence of a syllable within a word and sometimes of a word within a phrase: primary accent; secondary accent.

3. a mark indicating stress (as (·, ·), or (ˈ, ˌ), or (′, ″)), vowel quality (as French grave `,acute ´,circumflex ^, ), form (as French la “the” versus là “there”), or pitch.

4. any similar mark.

5. Prosody. regularly recurring stress. a mark indicating stress or some other distinction in pronunciation or value.

6. a musical tone or pattern of pitch inherent in a particular language either as a feature essential to the identification of a vowel or a syllable or to the general acoustic character of the language.Compare tone (def 7).

7. Often, accents. the unique speech patterns, inflections, choice of words, etc., that identify a particular individual: We recognized his accents immediately. She corrected me in her usual mild accents. the distinctive style or tone characteristic of an author, composer, etc.: the unmistakably Brahmsian accents of the sonata; She recognized the familiar accents of Robert Frost in the poem.

8. a mode of pronunciation, as pitch or tone, emphasis pattern, or intonation, characteristic of or peculiar to the speech of a particular person, group, or locality: French accent; Southern accent. Compare tone (def 5).

9. such a mode of pronunciation recognized as being of foreign origin: He still speaks with an accent. 10. Music. a stress or emphasis given to certain notes. a mark noting this. stress or emphasis regularly recurring as a feature of rhythm. 1

1. Mathematics. a symbol used to distinguish similar quantities that differ in value, as in b ′, b ″, b ‴ (called b prime, b second or b double prime, b third or b triple prime, respectively). a symbol used to indicate a particular unit of measure, as feet (′) or inches (″), minutes (′) or seconds (″). a symbol used to indicate the order of a derivative of a function in calculus, as f′ (called f prime) is the first derivative of a function f. 1

2. words or tones expressive of some emotion. 1

3. accents, words; language; speech: He spoke in accents bold. 1

4. distinctive character or tone: an accent of whining complaint. 1

5. special attention, stress, or emphasis: an accent on accuracy. 1

6. a detail that is emphasized by contrasting with its surroundings: a room decorated in navy blue with two red vases as accents. 1

7. a distinctive but subordinate pattern, motif, color, flavor, or the like: The salad dressing had an accent of garlic. verb (used with object) 1

8. to pronounce with prominence (a syllable within a word or a word within a phrase): to accent the first syllable of “into”; to accent the first word of “White House.”.Compare stress (def 12). 1

9. to mark with a written accent or accents. 20. to give emphasis or prominence to; accentuate.

"There can be accent colors."
"There can be accent plants."
"There can be accent models."
"There can be accent series."
"There can be accent products."
"There can be accent people."
"There can be accent lightings."
"There can be accent wrongs."
"There can be accent titles."
"There can be accent slippages."
"There can be accent resonatings."
"There can be accent perfects."
"There can be accent lights."
"There can be accent knowns."
"There can be accent fallings."
"There can be accent englishs."
"There can be accent differences."
"There can be accent computers."
"There can be accent colours."
"There can be accent coaches."