Pronunciation · Creative work

How to pronounce anathema

Anathema is uh-NATH-uh-muh in CMUdict (AH0 N AE1 TH AH0 M AH0), four syllables with the stress on "NATH".

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The dictionary sound sequence

CMUdict lists this North American English pronunciation for anathema. Read each sequence from left to right. The numbers mark vowel stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

Dictionary variant 1

AH0 N AE1 TH AH0 M AH0

Syllable estimate: 4 vowel nuclei
Primary stress: 2nd vowel position

Check anathema in Merriam-Webster and listen to available dictionary audio.

Syllable counts come from vowel tokens; CMUdict does not supply syllable boundaries here. Variant order follows the dictionary and does not rank correctness. This lexicon does not represent every accent or context.

Use anathema in context

Anathema describes something deeply disliked, as in "the idea was anathema to him", and it turns up in essays, politics and theology. The string of short vowels makes readers drop a syllable or stress the first one. CMUdict has four even syllables except for the strong second.

Long meetings are anathema to the engineering team.
The new rule was anathema to most of the members.

Read the sound tokens

Each example word below is a cue for the named sound, rather than a respelling of anathema. Unstressed vowels may sound reduced. These cues follow the CMU phoneme-set key (Appendix A).

AHsound in hutvowel

Nsound in kneeconsonant

AEsound in atvowel

THsound in thetaconsonant

Msound in meconsonant

Take it to your next recording

Make an audition worksheet

Select a dictionary variant for your checklist. The two original sentences retain their normal spelling; this worksheet helps you review a recording rather than forcing a speech engine to use phonemes.

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Your plain-text audition worksheet

How to pronounce anathema

Word: anathema
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: AH0 N AE1 TH AH0 M AH0
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 4
Primary stress: 2nd vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
Long meetings are anathema to the engineering team.
The new rule was anathema to most of the members.

REVIEW CHECKLIST
[ ] Read both sentences naturally; keep the source wording.
[ ] Compare the intended pronunciation with the selected dictionary variant.
[ ] Listen for vowel sounds, consonants, and word stress in context.
[ ] Check with a speaker or another dictionary when accent or meaning matters.
[ ] Generate and listen to a short Murmur sample before exporting the full script.

Practice note: Tap four beats and hit only the second: uh, NATH, uh, muh. The th should be breathy, as in thin.

CMUdict is a North American English lexicon, not a recording or a complete accent guide.
Variant order is dictionary order; it is not a ranking of correctness.
Source: https://github.com/cmusphinx/cmudict/blob/74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690/cmudict.dict
Source commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690
License: https://www.murmurtts.com/downloads/cmudict-license.txt
Reference: https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/anathema

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Dictionary source

The phonemes on this page come from CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The dictionary maintainers acknowledge that errors and omissions can remain; check another source or a speaker when the pronunciation matters.

CMUdict README · Included dictionary license

Source version and checksum

Commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690

Dictionary SHA-256: 81917843c7f44ce2b094ac63873c2c7a4cf802040792c455ba3ca406891c3d22

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