---
title: "How to pronounce exacerbate | Murmur"
description: "Check exacerbate pronunciation with CMUdict sound tokens and stress, then practise two original sentences and download a voiceover audition worksheet."
canonical: "https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/exacerbate"
---
[Murmur](https://www.murmurtts.com/)/[Pronunciation](https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation)/exacerbate

PRONUNCIATION / Science and learning

# How to pronounce exacerbate

Check exacerbate pronunciation with CMUdict sound tokens and stress, then practise two original sentences and download a voiceover audition worksheet.

## The dictionary sound sequence

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

Dictionary variant 1

`IH0 G Z AE1 S ER0 B EY2 T`

**Syllable estimate**

4 vowel nuclei

**Primary stress**

2nd vowel position

**Secondary stress**

4th vowel position

[Check exacerbate in Merriam-Webster and listen to available dictionary audio](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exacerbate).

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 exacerbate in context

Exacerbate means to make an existing problem or condition worse. It appears in reporting, scientific explanation, and policy discussion. A useful sentence identifies the original difficulty and the contributing factor, so listeners can follow the worsening relationship rather than hearing an abstract statement that something is bad.

1. Poor ventilation can exacerbate the problem described in the report.
2. The sudden price increase could exacerbate tensions between the partners.

### A practice cue

Test exacerbate with the named problem and its contributing factor. Compare it separately with exasperate if both occur in the script, then listen to the entire cause-and-effect sentence to confirm that the worsening relationship remains easy to follow.

## Read the sound tokens

Each example word below is a cue for the named sound, rather than a respelling of exacerbate. Unstressed vowels may sound reduced. These cues follow the [CMU phoneme-set key (Appendix A)](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aria/Papers/MastersThesis.pdf#page=115).

`IH`sound in **it**vowel`G`sound in **green**consonant`Z`sound in **zee**consonant`AE`sound in **at**vowel`S`sound in **sea**consonant`ER`sound in **hurt**vowel`B`sound in **be**consonant`EY`sound in **ate**vowel`T`sound in **tea**consonant

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.

Copying and downloading happen in your browser. No script upload or audio generation is needed.

## Dictionary source

The phonemes on this page come from [CMU Pronouncing Dictionary](https://github.com/cmusphinx/cmudict/blob/74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690/cmudict.dict). The dictionary maintainers acknowledge that errors and omissions can remain; check another source or a speaker when the pronunciation matters.

[CMUdict README](https://github.com/cmusphinx/cmudict/blob/74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690/README) · [Included dictionary license](https://www.murmurtts.com/downloads/cmudict-license.txt)

Source version and checksum

Commit: `74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690`

Dictionary SHA-256: `81917843c7f44ce2b094ac63873c2c7a4cf802040792c455ba3ca406891c3d22`

## Keep practising

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[Build a pronunciation test suite for local TTS](https://www.murmurtts.com/blog/pronunciation-test-suite-local-tts) · [Browse all word references](https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation)

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## Check the word in a real voiceover.

Murmur generates speech locally on Apple Silicon Macs. Try your audition sentences with your chosen model and voice, listen for pronunciation, and review the result before exporting. A dictionary sequence does not guarantee a model’s output.

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