Meaning & use
syllabication
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Meaning
noununcountabletechnical
The way a word is divided into its syllables, or the process of dividing it.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: the syllabication of the word, not a syllabication.
Patterns
- the syllabication of a word
- syllabication rules
The teacher showed the class how syllabication can help them spell long words.
Dictionaries usually show the syllabication of a word with dots.
Correct syllabication matters when you must break a word at the end of a line.
Common combinations
- rules of syllabication
- The rules of syllabication differ between languages.
- syllabication of a word
- The syllabication of the word is shown in the entry.
- correct syllabication
- Correct syllabication helps with hyphenation.
- practice syllabication
- Students practice syllabication with new vocabulary.
- syllabication exercise
- The worksheet was a syllabication exercise.
Synonyms and how they differ
- syllabification
- Syllabification means the same and is a little more common in linguistics texts.
- hyphenation
- Hyphenation is about where a word may be broken in print, not about its spoken syllables.
- segmentation
- Segmentation is broader and covers splitting any speech or text into units.
Word family
- syllable noun
- a unit of sound in a word
- syllabic adjective
- relating to syllables
- syllabify verb
- to divide into syllables
- syllabification noun
- another word for syllabication
Commonly confused: syllabication or syllabus?
syllabication vs syllabus
A syllabus is a summary of a course, while syllabication concerns the syllables of words.
Practice
Which activity involves syllabication?
Choose one answer.
Syllabication is dividing a word into syllables. The other tasks concern translation, etymology and meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “syllabication”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.