PRONUNCIATION / Creative work

How to pronounce silhouette

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

Dictionary variant 1

S IH2 L AH0 W EH1 T

Syllable estimate: 3 vowel nuclei
Primary stress: 3rd vowel position
Secondary stress: 1st vowel position

Check silhouette 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 silhouette in context

Silhouette describes an outline or dark shape seen against a lighter background. Photography tutorials, scene descriptions, and fashion commentary may use it for different visual purposes. Since a listener cannot always see the image, narration should identify the subject and lighting or shape that make the silhouette meaningful in that scene.

The cyclist's silhouette crossed the bright doorway.
The photographer waited for a clear silhouette against the evening sky.

Read the sound tokens

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

Ssound in seaconsonant

IHsound in itvowel

Lsound in leeconsonant

AHsound in hutvowel

Wsound in weconsonant

EHsound in Edvowel

Tsound in teaconsonant

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 silhouette

Word: silhouette
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: S IH2 L AH0 W EH1 T
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 3
Primary stress: 3rd vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
The cyclist's silhouette crossed the bright doorway.
The photographer waited for a clear silhouette against the evening sky.

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: Audition silhouette alongside the subject and background from your description. Listen for a coherent visual image across the whole sentence, and compare a descriptive reading with a more instructional one if the passage shifts from discussing a photograph to explaining how it was made.

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/silhouette

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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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