voice
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The sound made by the vibration of vocal folds modified by the resonance of the vocal tract.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
voysIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvɔɪs
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
phonetics
The sound made by the vibration of vocal folds modified by the resonance of the vocal tract
“A singer takes good care of his voice.”
Sound uttered by the mouth, especially by human beings in speech or song; sound thus uttered considered as possessing some special quality or character.
phonetics
A sound suggestive of a vocal utterance
The tone or sound emitted by an object.
phonetics
Sound made through vibration of the vocal cords; sonant, or intonated, utterance; tone; — distinguished from mere breath sound as heard in whispering and voiceless consonants.
The faculty or power of utterance.
verb
transitive
To give utterance or expression to; to utter; to publish; to announce
transitive
To fit for producing the proper sounds; to regulate the tone of
Give voice to
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The sound made by the vibration of vocal folds modified by the resonance of the vocal tract
Used this way, voice is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
“A singer takes good care of his voice.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
Nearby words
- articulation , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- sound , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use voice
- “A singer takes good care of his voice.”noun
- “A shrill voice sounded behind us.”noun
- “He wanted to hear trained voices sing it.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Produced with vibration of the vocal cords.
The act of adjusting an organ pipe (or wind instrument) so that it conforms to the standards of tone and pitch and color.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A part written for a singer.
A computerized system for answering and routing telephone calls.
A speech sound accompanied by sound from the vocal cords.
Communication by word of mouth.
An inner voice that judges your behavior.
A cartilaginous structure at the top of the trachea.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: sound made by the vibration of vocal folds modified by the resonance of the vocal tract
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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.