⬇️ To make smaller 🏚️ To weaken 🧩 To simplify 🍲 To thicken (cooking) ⚖️ To lose weight 🧪 To add electrons 🔉 To weaken sound

to reduce

1 6.9

To make a vowel sound weaker and shorter in speech

verb
/rɪˈdjuːs/

Specialized

: reducir

In connected speech, the vowel in the word 'going' is often reduced to a shorter form.
reduce unstressed vowels
reduce unstressed syllables
reduce articulatory precision

I say together, and someone reduce the vowel to together to day-to-day.

Examples

I say together, and someone reduce the vowel to together to day-to-day.

WIRED
One way to reduce the acoustic change induced by this coarticulation would be to use a motor equivalence strategy.

Academic text (2011)
Are some words said so quickly or informally that endings are not heard? Are words reduced and syllables sometimes "swallowed"?

Academic text (1990)
When speaking quickly, many English words can be reduced to a schwa sound, making them harder to understand.
She practiced saying the phrase slowly, ensuring that the vowels were not reduced in volume.

Synonyms

to lessen

vsto reduce

34 2.8

To make something smaller in amount or strength

applies only to weakening vowel or syllable sounds in speech

Antonyms

to emphasize

397 3.7

To show that something is very important

Phrasal Verbs

to reduce swelling

1 3.4

Make a swollen area of the body smaller

How Reduced

to unstress

6.3

to reduce

Specialized

1 6.9

to stress

11 3.3

Surface Forms

reduce infinitive

reduced past

reduced past participle

reducing present participle

reduces third person singular

Morphology

reduce = re + duce

Although the word historically contains re- and the bound root -duce, the phonetics sense is a specialized technical meaning that is not guessable from those components.

Etymology

Reduce comes from the Latin parts re- 'back' and ducere 'to lead'. So, to reduce a vowel or sound is to make it smaller or weaker, like 'leading it back' to a softer form.