How to pronounce fence in American English

IPA /fɛns/ Syllables 1 · fehns Stress 1st syllable

FEHNS

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Americans pronounce fence as FEHNS (/fɛns/). You'll hear it in sentences like "He repaired the fence to keep the livestock inside".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "fence".

1 syllable, 4 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

f/f/

Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.

eh/ɛ/

Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.

n/n/

Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your teeth. Air flows through your nose.

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 "fence" in the wild.

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

"He repaired the fence to keep the livestock inside."

hee ruh·PAIRD dhuh FEHNS tuh KEEP dhuh LAHYV·stahk uhn·SAHYD

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "fence" 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 "FEHNS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.