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grapheme

Pronunciation: /ˈgrafiːm/
Definition of grapheme

noun

Linguistics
  • the smallest meaningful contrastive unit in a writing system. Compare with phoneme.

Derivatives

graphemic

Pronunciation: /grəˈfiːmɪk/
adjective

graphemically

Pronunciation: /grəˈfiːmɪk(ə)li/
adverb

graphemics

noun

Origin:

1930s: from graph2 + -eme

Grammar

A term from linguistics meaning the smallest unit in writing that can change meaning. In practice this means: a letter a punctuation mark

grapheme in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of grapheme in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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