bisyllabic

4.4

A word that has two syllables

adjective
/ˌbaɪsɪˈlæbɪk/

: bisilábico

The word 'happy' is bisyllabic, consisting of two syllables: 'hap' and 'py'.

Examples

After 8 seconds, participants were given the word's first phoneme; if this clue did not help, the first syllable, for bisyllabic words, was supplied.

Academic text (2012)
Syllables from polysyllabic words rather than bisyllabic words were used to avoid syllable-final vowel-lengthening effects.

Academic text (2012)
In linguistics, bisyllabic terms like 'market' are often easier for beginners to pronounce.
Many children's books use bisyllabic words to help young readers develop their reading skills.

Synonyms

disyllabic

vsbisyllabic

Specialized

7.7

Having two syllables

is the same meaning but uses a different prefix in its form

Surface Forms

bisyllabic positive

Morphology

bisyllabic = syllabic (transparent) = bi + syllab + ic

Formed by adding the productive prefix 'bi-' (two) to the adjective 'syllabic', so the meaning 'having two syllables' is directly inferable.

Etymology

Bisyllabic comes from bi- ('two') and syllable ('a beat of sound'), and you can see bi- in words like bicycle. So a bisyllabic word has two sound beats, which is why it has two syllables.