euphony

euphony

English

Etymology

From French euphonie, from Ancient Greek εὐϕωνία (euphōnía), from εὐ- (eu-, prefix meaning ‘good, well’) + φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound; (human) voice; discourse, speech”) (from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to say, speak”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns).[1] The English word is analysable as eu- +‎ -phony.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈjuːfəni/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

euphony (countable and uncountable, plural euphonies)

1. A pronunciation of letters and syllables which is pleasing to the ear.

   Antonym: cacophony

   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth, Chapter 8:

     Mandalay. In the name there was a euphony which beckoned to the imagination, yet this was the bitter, withered reality.

2. Pleasant phonetic quality of certain words.

   When I hear you speak, I hear beautiful euphony.

Derived terms

• euphonious
• euphonic

Translations

pronunciation which is pleasing to the ear

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Finnish: eufonia (fi) Galician: eufonía f German: Eufonie f Hungarian: jóhangzás, eufónia, jó/szép/kellemes hangzás, széphangzás Italian: eufonia (it) f Portuguese: eufonia (pt) f Romanian: eufonie (ro) f

pleasant phonetic quality

Bulgarian: благозвучие (bg) n (blagozvučie) Chinese: Mandarin: 諧音／谐音 (zh) (xiéyīn) Finnish: eufonia (fi) Galician: eufonía f German: Eufonie f Portuguese: eufonia (pt) f Romanian: eufonie (ro) f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Dutch: eufonie (nl) f, welluidendheid (nl) f French: euphonie (fr) f Georgian: ევფონია (evponia), კეთილხმოვანება (ḳetilxmovaneba) Greek: ευφωνία (el) f (effonía) Ancient: εὐφωνία f (euphōnía) Italian: eufonia (it) f Russian: благозву́чие (ru) n (blagozvúčije) Serbo-Croatian: Roman: blagoglasje (sh) n Spanish: eufonía (es) f Swedish: eufoni (sv) c Tagalog: hunig Turkish: please add this translation if you can

See also

• ideophone
• phonaesthesia

References

1. Compare “euphony, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “euphony, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.