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spoken word

noun

Simple meaning

An oral art form, usually made up of performance poetry, although sometimes overlapping with storytelling or rap.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

spohkuhnwurd

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈspoʊkənˈwɝd

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. uncountable

    An oral art form, usually consisting of performance poetry, although sometimes overlapping with storytelling or rap.

  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see spoken, word.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see spoken, word.

Used this way, spoken word is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.