How to pronounce clips in American English

IPA /klɪps/ Syllables 1 · klihps Stress 1st syllable

KLIHPS

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Americans pronounce clips as KLIHPS (/klɪps/). You'll hear it in sentences like "She clips coupons every week to save money on groceries".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "clips".

1 syllable, 5 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

k/k/

Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.

l/l/

Place the tip of your tongue against the alveolar ridge just behind your top front teeth, the same contact point as /t/, /d/, and /n/. The difference is what happens to the air: for /l/, you let it flow continuously around the <em>sides</em> of the tongue (that's why /l/ is called a lateral). Turn your voice on the whole time. Lips stay relaxed, no rounding or flaring. For the Dark L variant at the end of a syllable, also pull the back of the tongue up and back toward the soft palate.

ih/ɪ/

Drop your jaw slightly with relaxed lips. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and arch the top-front toward the roof.

p/p/

Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "clips" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"She clips coupons every week to save money on groceries."

shee KLIHPS KOO·pahnz EHV·ree WEEK tuh SAYV MUH·nee ahn GROH·suh·reez

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "clips" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "KLIHPS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.