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100 Words
100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces

How should you pronounce shifty words of French origin, like cadre, forte, and debacle?  And what about those daunting words from Greek, like chimera, machination, and gyro?  Is it so wrong to pronounce nuclear as if it rhymes with molecular

How you pronounce words can make a big difference—and often for the worse.  Most people have painful memories of having their pronunciation corrected at a business meeting or social event, when an effort to make a good impression has backfired.  The newest title in the best-selling series, 100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces, presents 100 words that people are most likely to mispronounce, or have more than one way of being pronounced, and answers the question, Which way is the right way?


Here is a complete list of the words in 100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces:


acumen
aegis
affluent
almond
antipodes
asphalt
babel
banal
boatswain
cache
cacophony
cadre
Celtic
chaise longue
chiaroscuro
chicanery
chimera
chutzpah
claddagh
coccyx
coitus
comptroller
conch
concupiscence
coup de grâce
covert
cumin
daiquiri
debacle
desuetude
desultory
detritus
Diaspora
divisive
dour
elegiac
epitome
epoch
err
feng shui
flaccid
forbade
forte
geisha
genre
gnocchi
gyro
Halley’s comet
harass
hegemony
hovel
impious
jejune
kiln
kudos
lingerie
loath
long-lived
machination
maraschino
marquis
metastasize
mischievous
moot
mores
Neanderthal
niche
nuclear
oblique
oeuvre
often
pace
pastoral
patina
piña colada
plethora
portentous
potash
primer
processes
puerile
quay
quietus
reprise
respite
ribald
salve
schism
sherbet
sloth
stigmata
strophe
timbre
triathlon
Uranus
victual
viscount
wont
Xhosa
ye


Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.