Pronunciation · Creative work

How to pronounce zealous

Zealous has a short e in CMUdict, ZEL-us (Z EH1 L AH0 S), even though "zeal" by itself has a long ee.

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The dictionary sound sequence

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

Dictionary variant 1

Z EH1 L AH0 S

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

Check zealous 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 zealous in context

Zealous turns up in profiles, legal writing and reviews of an over-eager character. Because readers know zeal, they often say "ZEE-lus". The listed form shortens the vowel, as in jealous.

The zealous new manager rewrote every process in a week.
Fans can be zealous about their favorite bands.

Read the sound tokens

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

Zsound in zeeconsonant

EHsound in Edvowel

Lsound in leeconsonant

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 zealous

Word: zealous
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: Z EH1 L AH0 S
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 2
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
The zealous new manager rewrote every process in a week.
Fans can be zealous about their favorite bands.

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: Rhyme it with jealous. Then say zeal and zealous one after the other. The vowel should shorten as the word grows.

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/zealous

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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.

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Source version and checksum

Commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690

Dictionary SHA-256: 81917843c7f44ce2b094ac63873c2c7a4cf802040792c455ba3ca406891c3d22

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