How to pronounce gloves in American English

IPA /glʌvz/ Syllables 1 · gluhvz Stress 1st syllable

GLUHVZ

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Americans pronounce gloves as GLUHVZ (/glʌvz/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The batting gloves help him grip the bat better".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "gloves".

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

g/g/

Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, 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.

uh/ʌ/

Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.

v/v/

Lift your bottom lip so its inner edge (where the wet part meets the dry part) touches the very bottom of your top front teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you blow air through.

z/z/

Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.

In real conversation

Hear "gloves" in the wild.

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

"The batting gloves help him grip the bat better."

dhuh BA·duhng GLUHVZ HEHLP hihm GRIHP dhuh BAT BEH·der

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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