Accent

How to spell accent

6 letters · 2 syllables

105 of the 1,498 people asked to spell accent in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is acent. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

acent accent

What people typed instead

• acent16 people
• acsent8 people

How to pronounce accent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does accent mean?

1. nounA distinctive way of pronouncing a language, usually associated with a particular region or social group.
2. nounEmphasis given to a syllable or word, or a small mark written above a letter to show pronunciation.
3. verbTo emphasise something or make it more noticeable.

Accent in a sentence

• noun

  Her northern accent became stronger whenever she rang her family.

• noun

  The accent in the word 'banana' falls on the second syllable.

• verb

  A few cushions can accent the colours already in the room.

• noun

  The actor spent months perfecting a convincing French accent for the film.

• noun

  Remember to add the accent over the e in 'café' when you type the menu.

• verb

  The designer used gold trim to accent the edges of the invitation.

Where does accent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin accentus, which literally meant 'a singing added to' or the tone given to a syllable. It was built from the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' or 'towards', and the verb canere, meaning 'to sing', the same root that gives us 'chant' and 'cantata'. Roman grammarians coined accentus as a direct translation of the Greek prosoidia, the word from which we get 'prosody', because the Greeks heard the rise and fall of speech as a kind of melody. English picked the word up in the late 1300s through Old French, first to describe the stress or musical pitch placed on a syllable, and later widening to mean a regional manner of speaking. Because the 'sing' root is buried and the double c is followed by the soft 'cc' sound, the spelling keeps both c's even though only one is clearly heard.

How the word is built

• ac- (from ad-: to, towards)
• cent (from cantus, the past participle of canere: to sing)