m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
How to pronounce makeup in American English
MAYK·uhp
Start here
Americans pronounce makeup as MAYK-uhp (/ˈmeɪkˌʌp/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She applies her makeup while listening to the morning news" or "The makeup exam was scheduled for students who were absent" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "makeup".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ay/eɪ/
Start with your jaw slightly open and the front of your tongue forward and slightly up. Glide upward, your jaw closes a little more and your tongue arches higher toward the roof of the mouth.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
In real conversation
Hear "makeup" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
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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
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "makeup", the "p" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
makeup→MAYK·UHP
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch MAYK — keep everything else short and quick.
mayk·UHP→MAYK·UHP
03
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.
MAYK·UHP→MAYK·UHP
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "makeup" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "MAYK" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "MAYK-uhp" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "makeup" 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 "MAYK-uhp" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "makeup" 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 "MAYK-uhp" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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