epenthesis

English

WOTD – 15 January 2008

Etymology

Middle of 16th century: via Late Latin, from Ancient Greek ἐπένθεσις (epénthesis), from ἐπεντίθημι (epentíthēmi, “I insert”), from ἐπί (epí) + ἐντίθημι (entíthēmi, “I put in”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + τίθημι (títhēmi, “I put, place”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈpɛn.θə.sɪs/
• Hyphenation: epen‧the‧sis

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

epenthesis (countable and uncountable, plural epentheses)

1. (phonetics, prosody) The insertion of a phoneme, letter, or syllable into a word, usually to satisfy the phonological constraints of a language or poetic context.

Hypernyms

• metaplasm

Hyponyms

• anaptyxis
• excrescence
• svarabhakti
• vyanjanabhakti

 

Coordinate terms

• paragoge
• prothesis

 

Related terms

• epenthetic
• epenthetical
• epenthetically

 

Translations

insertion of a phoneme or letter into a word

• Afrikaans: epentese
• Armenian: միջնահավելված (miǰnahavelvac), միջնահավելում (miǰnahavelum)
• Breton: mezkresk m
• Bulgarian: епенте́за f (epentéza)
• Catalan: epèntesi (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 插音 (zh) (chāyǐn), 插字 (zh)

• Czech: epenteze f
• Danish: epentese c
• Dutch: epenthese f
• Esperanto: epentezo
• Extremaduran: epéntesi f
• Finnish: epenteesi
• French: épenthèse (fr) f
• Galician: epéntese (gl) f
• German: Epenthesis (de) f, Epenthese (de) f; Fugenelement (de) n, Fugenzeichen n, Fugenlaut (de) m (in case of compounds)
• Greek: επένθεση f (epénthesi)

  Ancient: ἐπένθεσις f (epénthesis)

• Hindi: अपिनिहिति f (apinihiti)
• Hungarian: hangbetoldás, epentézis, betoldódás, hangbetoldódás, (the sound itself) bontóhang
• Indonesian: epentesis (id), swarabakti (id)
• Irish: eipintéis f
• Italian: epentesi (it) f
• Japanese: 音挿入 (おんそうにゅう, onsōnyū)
• Korean: 삽입음 (ko) (sabibeum)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: epentez

• Latin: epenthesis f
• Lithuanian: epentezė f
• Macedonian: епентеза f (epenteza)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: epentese m

  Nynorsk: epentese m

• Occitan: epentèsi f
• Polish: epenteza f
• Portuguese: epêntese (pt) f
• Russian: эпенте́за (ru) f (epentɛ́za)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: епенте́за f

  Roman: epentéza (sh) f

• Spanish: epéntesis (es) f
• Swedish: epentes (sv) c
• Turkish: türeme (tr)
• Ukrainian: епенте́за f (epentéza)
• Uzbek:

  Cyrillic: эпентеза (uz) (epenteza)

  Roman: epenteza

• Welsh: rhyngosodiad m

Further reading

• Definition at silva rhetoricae, The Forest of Rhetoric

Dutch

Etymology

From Latin epenthesis, from Ancient Greek ἐπένθεσις (epénthesis), from ἐπεντίθημι (epentíthēmi, “I insert”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /eːpɛnˈteːzɪs/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: epen‧the‧sis

Noun

epenthesis f (plural epentheses)

1. Alternative form of epenthese (chiefly used in older and translated texts).

   Vele Nederlandse woorden bevatten een epenthesis om twee zelfstandige naamwoorden te verbinden.

   A lot of Dutch words contain an epenthesis to tie two nouns together.