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accent
has definitions from the fields of rhetoric,linguistics
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[ noun ] (linguistics) distinctive manner of oral expression
Synonyms Examples "he couldn't suppress his contemptuous accent" "she had a very clear speech pattern" Used in print (Edward P. Lawton, "Northern Liberals and Southern...)The South 's antipathy to Northern civilization includes such charges as poor manners , harsh accents , lack of appreciation of the arts of living like gastronomy and the use of leisure . (Tristram Coffin, Not to the Swift....)A New_York kid , a refugee from one of the Harlem gangs , made_fun of Trig 's accent , and drew a knife . (William Maxwell, The Chateau....)`` Le petit_dejeuner '' , Harold said , in an accent that did credit to Miss_Sloan , his high-school French_teacher . Related terms |
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[ verb ] direct attention to, as if by means of contrast
Synonyms Examples "This dress accentuates your nice figure!" "I set off these words by brackets" Used in print (Mr. America, 4:6...)Mr._Claude is a specialist in torso development and he has long favored the now famous Weider_Push-Pull_Super-Set technique in which one exercise of the Super-Set is a pressing or `` pushing '' movement which accents one sector of a muscle group in a specific way , followed by a `` pulling '' exercise which works the opposing sector of the same muscle group . Related terms deemphasize change stress foreground pick_up raise background |
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[ noun ] special importance or significance
Synonyms Examples "the red light gave the central figure increased emphasis" "the room was decorated in shades of gray with distinctive red accents" Used in print (Norman Kent, "The Watercolor Art of Roy M. Mason"...)Long observation has taught Mason that most landscape can be reduced to three essential planes : a foreground in sharp focus - either a light area with dark accents or a dark one with lights ; a middle_distance often containing the major motif ; and a background , usually a silhouetted form foiled against the sky . Related terms |
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[ noun ] (linguistics) the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people
Examples "the immigrants spoke an odd dialect of English" "he has a strong German accent" Related terms non-standard_speech patois eye_dialect forward spang euphonious stress |
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[ noun ] (rhetoric) the relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch)
Synonyms Examples "he put the stress on the wrong syllable" Related terms prosody sentence_stress tonic_accent accentuation word_stress stress |
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[ verb ] put stress on; utter with an accent
Synonyms Examples "In Farsi, you accent the last syllable of each word" Related terms |
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[ verb ] to stress, single out as important
Synonyms Examples : "Dr. Jones emphasizes exercise in addition to a change in diet." |
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[ noun ] a diacritical mark used to indicate stress or (in some languages) placed above a vowel to indicate a special pronunciation
Synonyms Related terms diacritical_mark acute_accent stress_mark grave_accent language |
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