h/h/
Push a stream of air from your throat through your open mouth. No tongue or lip contact.
How to pronounce hideously in American English
HIH·dee·uh·slee
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Americans pronounce hideously as HIH-dee-uh-slee (/ˈhɪdiəsli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "hideously".
4 syllables, 8 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
d/d/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Same as Flap T — a quick tap without stopping airflow.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
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.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
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Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch HIH — keep everything else short and quick.
hih·DEE·UH·SLEE→HIH·dee·uh·slee
02
Pronouncing the unstressed syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the second syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
HIH·dee·UH·slee→HIH·dee·uh·slee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "hideously" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "HIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "HIH-dee-uh-slee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why doesn't the T sound like a T in "hideously"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "hideously" sounds closer to "HIH-dee-uh-slee" than to a crisp-T pronunciation. This is the flap-T rule, one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech.
Why does the third syllable in "hideously" reduce to "uh"?
Unstressed syllables in American English collapse toward a schwa — a lazy, neutral "uh" sound. The full vowel is what textbooks teach, but in actual American speech every unstressed vowel reduces. The respell "HIH-dee-uh-slee" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "hideously" 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 "HIH-dee-uh-slee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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