Pronunciation · Creative work

How to pronounce ethereal

Ethereal is stressed on the second syllable in CMUdict, ih-THEER-ee-ul (IH0 TH IH1 R IY0 AH0 L), not on the first.

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The dictionary sound sequence

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

Dictionary variant 1

IH0 TH IH1 R IY0 AH0 L

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

Check ethereal 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 ethereal in context

Music reviews, fantasy fiction and visual art descriptions use ethereal to suggest something light and otherworldly. The stress falls on "THEER", and the first syllable is reduced. Shifting the stress to the start breaks the delicate rhythm the word is meant to carry.

Her voice had an ethereal quality on the quiet tracks.
Morning fog gave the valley an ethereal glow.

Read the sound tokens

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

IHsound in itvowel

THsound in thetaconsonant

Rsound in readconsonant

IYsound in eatvowel

AHsound in hutvowel

Lsound in leeconsonant

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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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How to pronounce ethereal

Word: ethereal
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: IH0 TH IH1 R IY0 AH0 L
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 4
Primary stress: 2nd vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
Her voice had an ethereal quality on the quiet tracks.
Morning fog gave the valley an ethereal glow.

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: Give the second syllable most of the weight and let the "ee-ul" ending fade gently. Try it inside a descriptive sentence to make sure the stress holds at a slower pace.

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/ethereal

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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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