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é

/eɪ/ or /e/

Traduction: La lettre 'e' avec un accent aigu, largement utilisée dans les emprunts au français ou pour indiquer la prononciation /e/ en fin de mot, là où un 'e' simple serait muet, souvent en conservant l'accent de l'original.

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letter

/eɪ/ or /e/B1formal
  • frLa lettre 'e' avec un accent aigu, largement utilisée dans les emprunts au français ou pour indiquer la prononciation /e/ en fin de mot, là où un 'e' simple serait muet, souvent en conservant l'accent de l'original.

The letter 'e' with an acute accent diacritic. Although not a distinct letter of the standard English alphabet, 'é' is widely recognized and used in English loanwords, particularly those borrowed from French. The acute accent indicates that the vowel is pronounced as a tense, close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/ rather than a silent letter or schwa, most often at the end of words. It functions to maintain stress or a specific phonetic quality in adopted terms.

  1. The letter 'e' with an acute accentB1formal

    The vowel character 'é' that represents a stressed, tense /e/ sound in loanwords, primarily from French, such as 'café', 'fiancé', and 'résumé'. In English orthography, the diacritic serves to signal that the vowel is not silent and must be pronounced separately or with a specific closed vowel quality. It is commonly retained in formal writing but is sometimes dropped in informal contexts.

    frLa lettre 'é' (e avec accent aigu)

    • The word 'café' uses an acute accent over the e.
    • In his résumé, he listed his previous work experience.
    • She ordered a crème brûlée and a café au lait.
    • The term 'fiancé' retains its French é to signal the masculine form.
    • Many English speakers struggle to type the é on a standard keyboard.
  2. The symbol for the close-mid front unrounded vowel in IPAC1formalscientific

    In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the character é is one form used to represent the close-mid front unrounded vowel sound, though the standard symbol is a plain 'e'. The accurate IPA vowel is a pure tone common in Romance languages, distinct from the English diphthong /eɪ/ which glides toward an 'i' sound. It is used in phonetic transcriptions for precise pronunciation guides in dictionaries and linguistics.

    frSymbole de la voyelle mi-fermée antérieure non arrondie

    • The French word 'été' is transcribed with the é sound in IPA.
    • The pure [e] sound is not common in most English dialects.
    • Linguists use é in phonetic notation to distinguish it from the schwa.
    • The tense [é] in Spanish 'bebé' is held longer than the English equivalent.
    • Pronunciation guides often use 'ay' to approximate the é for English learners.