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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
: 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
116 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
10 5.8

To pronounce words clearly so people understand

to pronounce correctly
7 2.8

Say words in the correct way so people understand you

How Clear

to enunciate
10 5.8
to misarticulate
  • Specialized
9.3
to mumble
116 4.9
to slur
18 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.