How to pronounce stress
American English pronunciation
STRES
- IPA
- /ˈstɹɛs/
- Syllables
- STRES (1 syllable)
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What stress means
Most people know stress in its everyday sense. Here's its other meaning.
The extra force on part of a word as you say it
In a sentence: In the word banana, the stress falls on the middle part: ba-NA-na.
Where it comes from: It comes from a shortened form of distress, and probably also from an old French word meaning narrowness. The worry meaning only caught on in the 1900s.
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