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

PRONUNCIATION / Creative work

# How to pronounce nefarious

Check nefarious 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 **nefarious**. Read each sequence from left to right. The numbers mark vowel stress: **1** primary, **2** secondary, **0** unstressed.

Dictionary variant 1

`N AH0 F EH1 R IY0 AH0 S`

**Syllable estimate**

4 vowel nuclei

**Primary stress**

2nd vowel position

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

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 nefarious in context

Nefarious describes seriously wicked or criminal conduct and often appears in mysteries, dramatic summaries, or satire. The surrounding action should explain the accusation. A narrator can heighten suspense, but should preserve the difference between a character's suspicion and an established account of what another person has done.

1. The inspector suspected a nefarious purpose behind the forged permit.
2. The villain's nefarious plan depended on an empty warehouse.

### A practice cue

Audition nefarious with the suspected or established action in the same passage. Compare a suspenseful reading with a more neutral one, checking that the voice respects attribution and does not make an unconfirmed suspicion sound like settled fact.

## Read the sound tokens

Each example word below is a cue for the named sound, rather than a respelling of nefarious. 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).

`N`sound in **knee**consonant`AH`sound in **hut**vowel`F`sound in **fee**consonant`EH`sound in **Ed**vowel`R`sound in **read**consonant`IY`sound in **eat**vowel`S`sound in **sea**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

[How to pronounce naive](https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/naive)[How to pronounce nonchalant](https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/nonchalant)[How to pronounce awry](https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/awry)[How to pronounce banal](https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/banal)

[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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