Definition

1. Noun:
   • A word having stress or acute accent on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable: In linguistics, a "paroxytone" is a term used to classify words based on the position of their primary stress or, in some languages like Ancient Greek, an acute accent. It specifically refers to words where this prominence falls on the second-to-last syllable.

Usage

• The term "paroxytone" is primarily used in linguistic analysis, particularly in the study of prosody (stress and rhythm) and in the description of languages where syllable stress is phonemic (changes meaning).
• It is often used in contrast with other technical terms like "oxytone" (stress on the last syllable) and "proparoxytone" (stress on the third-to-last syllable).

Examples

• Noun:
  • In English, the word "baNAna" is a paroxytone because the primary stress falls on the second syllable.
  • The Spanish word "caSA" (house) is a paroxytone.
  • Linguists noted that most nouns in that language class are paroxytone.

Advanced Usage

• Paroxytonic (adj): Describing the quality of having stress on the penultimate syllable.
  • The paroxytonic pattern is dominant in Italian vocabulary.

Variants and Related Words

• Oxytone (n): A word with stress on the final syllable (e.g., "guiTAR").
• Proparoxytone (n): A word with stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable (e.g., "CUStody").
• Barytone (n): In some linguistic contexts, a general term for a word not accented on the last syllable, which can include paroxytones.

Synonyms

• Penult-stressed word: A more descriptive, non-technical synonym.

Noun

1. word having stress or acute accent on the next to last syllable