Pronunciation · Everyday language

How to pronounce draught

Draught is said exactly like "draft" in CMUdict (D R AE1 F T): the "augh" makes a short a and an f sound, as in laughter.

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The dictionary sound sequence

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

Dictionary variant 1

D R AE1 F T

Syllable estimate: 1 vowel nucleus
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

Check draught 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 draught in context

Draught is the British spelling of draft, and it shows up on pub menus, in weather pieces about a cold draught and in UK novels. American readers meeting the spelling often try "drawt". Either spelling gives the same single syllable.

They only serve one stout on draught at the corner pub.
A cold draught came under the door all night.

Read the sound tokens

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

Dsound in deeconsonant

Rsound in readconsonant

AEsound in atvowel

Fsound in feeconsonant

Tsound in teaconsonant

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.

Worksheet pronunciation variant

Your plain-text audition worksheet

How to pronounce draught

Word: draught
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: D R AE1 F T
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 1
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
They only serve one stout on draught at the corner pub.
A cold draught came under the door all night.

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: Read the word as if it were printed draft. Then try laughter and draught together, since the "augh" works the same way in both.

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/draught

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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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