How to pronounce legs in American English

IPA /lɛgz/ Syllables 1 · lehgz Stress 1st syllable

LEHGZ

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Americans pronounce legs as LEHGZ (/lɛgz/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The intermission gave us a chance to stretch our legs".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "legs".

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

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.

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.

g/g/

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

z/z/

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

In real conversation

Hear "legs" in the wild.

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"The intermission gave us a chance to stretch our legs."

dhee ihn·ter·MIH·shuhn GAYV uhs uh CHANS tuh STREHCH ar LEHGZ

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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