diaphone

[ dahy-uh-fohn ]
/ ˈdaɪ əˌfoʊn /

noun

a foghorn producing a low-pitched, penetrating signal of two tones.
Phonetics.
  1. a phoneme in one dialect corresponding to a similar but phonetically different phoneme in a related dialect.
  2. a group of sounds comprising all the phonetically different dialectal variants of a given phoneme in a language: The broad a and flat a of “half” are members of a single diaphone.

Origin of diaphone

First recorded in 1905–10; dia- + -phone

Example sentences from the Web for diaphone

British Dictionary definitions for diaphone

diaphone
/ (ˈdaɪəˌfəʊn) /

noun

  1. the set of all realizations of a given phoneme in a language
  2. one of any number of corresponding sounds in different dialects of a language
a foghorn that emits a two-toned signal

Word Origin for diaphone

C20: from dia ( lect) + phone ²