h/h/
Push a stream of air from your throat through your open mouth. No tongue or lip contact.
How to pronounce homicide in American English
HAH·muh·sahyd
Start here
Americans pronounce homicide as HAH-muh-sahyd (/ˈhɑməˌsaɪd/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "He works as a detective in the homicide division".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "homicide".
3 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ah/ɑ/
Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.
m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
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.
ahy/aɪ/
Start with your jaw open wide and your tongue resting low and flat. Glide the front of your tongue up toward the roof of your mouth as your jaw closes halfway.
d/d/
Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.
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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 HAH — keep everything else short and quick.
hah·MUH·SAHYD→HAH·muh·SAHYD
02
Pronouncing the unstressed syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the first syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
HAH·MUH·sahyd→HAH·muh·SAHYD
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "homicide" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "HAH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "HAH-muh-sahyd" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "homicide" 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 "HAH-muh-sahyd" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "homicide" 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 "HAH-muh-sahyd" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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