Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Syllabic \Syl*lab"ic\, Syllabical \Syl*lab"ic*al\, a. [Gr. ?: cf. F. syllabique.]
Of or pertaining to a syllable or syllables; as, syllabic accent.
Consisting of a syllable or syllables; as, a syllabic augment. ``The syllabic stage of writing.''
--Earle.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1728, from Modern Latin syllabicus, from Greek syllabikos "of or pertaining to a syllable," from syllabe "a syllable" (see syllable). Related: Syllabical (1520s).
Wiktionary
a. 1 Of, relating to, or consisting of a syllable or syllables. 2 pronounce with every syllable distinct. 3 (context linguistics English) Designating a sound that is or can be the most sonorant segment of a syllable, as a vowel or a resonant. In the word riddle (rĭd'l), the two syllabic sounds are the (i˘) and the (l). 4 Of, or being a form of verse, based on the number of syllables in a line rather than on the arrangement of accents or quantity. n. (context linguistics English) A syllabic sound.
WordNet
adj. of or relating to syllables; "syllabic accent"; "syllabic characters each represent a syllable"
consisting of or using a syllabary or syllabic characters; "eskimos of the eastern Arctic have a system of syllabic writing"
(of verse) having lines based on number of syllables rather than on rhythmical arrangement of stresses or quantities [ant: accentual, quantitative]
consisting of a syllable or syllables; constituting a syllable or the nucleus of a syllable; consisting of a consonant sound not accompanied in the same syllable by a vowel sound or consisting of a vowel sound dominating the other vowel sounds in a syllable (as being the first vowel in a falling diphthong); "the syllabic `l' in `riddle' or the syllabic `n' in `botany' when it is pronounced `bot-n-y'"; "the syllabic `o' in `oi'" [ant: nonsyllabic]
of liquids and nasals [syn: vocalic] [ant: consonantal]
Wikipedia
Syllabic may refer to:
-
Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words
- Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable
- Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables
-
Abugida, writing system using symbols for consonant-vowel combinations (used to be called syllabic in the 19th century and syllabic alphabet by Coulmas)
- Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages
- Syllabic octal, a specific form of octal representation of 8-bit syllables or bytes
- Syllabic verse, poetry that has a certain number of syllables per line
- Syllabic text setting, in music, in which each syllable is matched to a single note, as opposed to melismatic
Usage examples of "syllabic".
The cuneiform system of writing was syllabic, each character denoting a syllable, so that we know what were the vowels in a proper name as well as the consonants.
As for English, it occurs in compound words or for the use of a specialized prefix or suffix, as well as showing correct syllabic separation when the hyphenated term is pronounced as one word.
Linear B had many logograms, and "logographic" Egyptian hieroglyphs included many syllabic signs as well as a virtual alphabet of individual letters for each consonant.
The naval radiograms, however, employed the special Morse code devised for kata kana, a syllabic script of Japanese.