Pronunciation · Work and business

How to pronounce nuance

Nuance is stressed on the first syllable in CMUdict, NOO-ahns (N UW1 AA0 N S), with an "ahns" ending rather than "ants".

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The dictionary sound sequence

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

Dictionary variant 1

N UW1 AA0 N S

Syllable estimate: 2 vowel nuclei
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

Check nuance 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 nuance in context

Nuance is a meeting and feedback word as much as a literary one: people praise a nuanced argument or ask for more nuance in a report. Readers split on where the stress goes and on the ending. The dictionary puts the weight on NOO and ends with a soft "ahns".

The proposal lost some nuance once it was cut to one page.
Her review caught a nuance the rest of us had missed.

Read the sound tokens

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

Nsound in kneeconsonant

UWsound in twovowel

AAsound in oddvowel

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 nuance

Word: nuance
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: N UW1 AA0 N S
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 2
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
The proposal lost some nuance once it was cut to one page.
Her review caught a nuance the rest of us had missed.

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: Two beats, NOO and ahns, with the second lighter and nowhere near the word "ants".

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/nuance

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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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