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Glite Dictionary
🤔 To express unclearly 👅 To say wrongly
to misarticulate

to misarticulate

9.3
To say a word or sound incorrectly so people cannot understand it
  • verb
  • /ˌmɪsˈɑːrtɪkjuˌleɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pronunciar incorrectamente
  • She often misarticulates certain difficult words during her presentations.

Examples

  • In future work, we plan to extend these methods to studies of other fricatives and to children who misarticulate fricatives.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The sibilants (along with the liquids) are also among the most common sounds to be misarticulated beyond the usual age of acquisition (Shriberg, 1994, 2009).

    Academic text (2013)

  • Many children tend to misarticulate sounds while learning to speak.

  • It can be frustrating when someone misarticulates a name in front of a crowd.

Synonyms

to mumble
vsto misarticulate
103 4.9

To speak in a low, unclear voice that is hard to understand

focuses on wrong or unclear pronunciation of specific words rather than general low speech
to mispronounce
vsto misarticulate
15 3.7

Say a word or sound in the wrong way

also covers unclear or slurred articulation not only wrong sound

Antonyms

to enunciate
6 5.8

To pronounce words clearly so people understand

to pronounce correctly
1 2.8

Say words in the correct way so people understand you

How Clear

to enunciate
6 5.8
to misarticulate
  • Specialized
9.3
to mumble
103 4.9
to slur
3 6.3

Surface Forms

misarticulate infinitive
misarticulated past
misarticulated past participle
misarticulating present participle
misarticulates third person singular

Morphology

misarticulate = articulate (transparent) = mis + articulate

The prefix 'mis-' clearly indicates incorrect or bad action applied to 'articulate', yielding 'pronounce incorrectly', a direct semantic negation.

Etymology

Misarticulate joins mis- ('wrong') with articulate, which in English means 'say words clearly' and can be pictured as 'putting sounds together like joints'. So to misarticulate a sound is to pronounce it wrongly or unclearly.