✨Creating an account only takes 20 seconds, and doesn’t require any personal info.
If you’ve got one already, please log in.🤝
ᴅʀᴇꜱꜱ vowel phoneme /e/
The ᴅʀᴇꜱꜱ vowel phoneme /e/ is an English vowel phoneme consisting of the vowel sound English speakers use in its keyword dress.[1][2] In phonemic notation, this phoneme is represented by /e/ (Gimsonian symbols, based on older RP), or /ɛ/ for American vowels.
This is a short vowel, and commonly called “the short E sound.”
Phonotactics[edit | edit source]
Syllables with this vowel are always stressed syllables.
In phonotactics, English words can’t usually end with /e/, which must be followed by a consonant phoneme. There are some exceptions to this, mostly of recent origin, such as meh,[3] kitteh[4] and bunneh.[5]
Pronunciation[edit | edit source]
In RP, the standard pronunciation is as a close-mid front unrounded vowel [e]; whereas in General American, it’s an open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ].
Spelling[edit | edit source]
Words in the ᴅʀᴇꜱꜱ lexical set are pronounced with this vowel.
Spelling is reliably ⟨e⟩. It can be ⟨ea⟩ in some words, e.g. bread, meant, weather, etc. ⟨ie⟩ only in friend. And ⟨ee⟩ in Greenwich, and ⟨ay⟩ in says. ⟨ai⟩ in said. ⟨o⟩ in Geoffrey.
