Pronunciation · Creative work

How to pronounce hiatus

Hiatus is hy-AY-tus in CMUdict (HH AY0 EY1 T AH0 S), three syllables with the stress on the long "ay", not "hy-AT-us".

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The dictionary sound sequence

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

Dictionary variant 1

HH AY0 EY1 T AH0 S

Syllable estimate: 3 vowel nuclei
Primary stress: 2nd vowel position

Check hiatus 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 hiatus in context

Hiatus shows up in entertainment news, podcast updates and band announcements about a break. Readers often give the second syllable a short a. That middle vowel should be the ay of day, and it carries the stress.

The band returned after a five-year hiatus.
The podcast is on hiatus until the new season starts.

Read the sound tokens

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

HHsound in heconsonant

AYsound in hidevowel

EYsound in atevowel

Tsound in teaconsonant

AHsound in hutvowel

Ssound in seaconsonant

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 hiatus

Word: hiatus
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: HH AY0 EY1 T AH0 S
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 3
Primary stress: 2nd vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
The band returned after a five-year hiatus.
The podcast is on hiatus until the new season starts.

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: Say hi, then AY, then tus, and put the weight on AY. Check that the middle vowel does not shorten to the a in cat.

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/hiatus

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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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