nonsyllabic

1. 1.

   not forming a syllable or the nucleus of a syllable; consisting of a consonant sound accompanied in the same syllable by a vowel sound or consisting of a vowel sound dominated by other vowel sounds in a syllable (as the second vowel in a falling diphthong)

   “the nonsyllabic `n' in `botany' when it is pronounced `botny'”

   “the nonsyllabic `i' in `oi'”

   Synonymsunsyllabic

   Antonymssyllabic

   Similarunsyllabled
2. 2.

   (of speech sounds) not forming or capable of forming the nucleus of a syllable

   “initial `l' in `little' is nonsyllabic”

   Antonymssyllabic

Questions about nonsyllabic

What does nonsyllabic mean?

nonsyllabic means "not forming a syllable or the nucleus of a syllable; consisting of a consonant sound accompanied in the same syllable by a vowel sound or consisting of a vowel sound dominated by other vowel sounds in a syllable (as the second vowel in a falling diphthong)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in nonsyllabic?

nonsyllabic has 4 syllables: non-syl-la-bic. The stress falls on "la".

What is another word for nonsyllabic?

Close synonyms include unsyllabic. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of nonsyllabic?

The recorded antonyms are syllabic, syllabic.

Is nonsyllabic a common word?

nonsyllabic is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.