🇺🇸
/ˈæksənt/
🇺🇸
/ˈæksənt/
🇬🇧
/ˈæksənt/
🇬🇧
/ˈæksənt/
Plural
accents
Past Tense
accented
Past Participle
accented
Gerund
accenting
3rd Person
accents
Accent is the distinctive way people pronounce words—shaped by where they’re from, how they were raised, or what languages they speak. It’s not about being 'right' or 'wrong'; it’s your voice’s fingerprint—like how a New Yorker says 'coffee' ('caw-fee') versus a Texan ('coff-ee'), or how a Spanish speaker might roll their R’s in English.
Her French accent made her storytelling especially charming.
The actor spent months training to perfect his Scottish accent for the role.
In Spanish, the word 'café' has an accent mark over the 'e' to show stress.
He tried to downplay his Southern accent during the job interview.
The teacher used colored markers to show word stress and accent patterns on the board.
cant
Comes from the Latin verb 'canere', meaning 'to sing' or 'to chant'. This root evolved into 'cantus' (song) and underlies words related to vocal melody, intonation, and musical speech. Examples include accent, incantation, canticle, recant, chant.
ad
Comes from the Latin prefix 'ad-', meaning 'to' or 'toward'. In 'accent', it combines with 'cant' to form 'ad-cantare' (to sing toward or to mark vocally), later Latinized as 'accentus'. Examples include adjoin, adopt, attract, announce.