How to pronounce pause in American English

IPA /pɑz/ Syllables 1 · pahz Stress 1st syllable

PAHZ

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Americans pronounce pause as PAHZ (/pɑz/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Does the noise cause the boys to pause?" or "The awful sauce caused a pause in the applause" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "pause".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

p/p/

Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.

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.

z/z/

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

In real conversation

Hear "pause" in the wild.

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

"Does the noise cause the boys to pause?"

duhz dhuh NOYZ KAHZ dhuh BOYZ tuh PAHZ

"Peace talks are scheduled to resume after a lengthy pause."

PEES TAHKS er SKEH·joold tuh ruh·ZOOM AF·ter uh LEHNG·thee PAHZ

"The awful sauce caused a pause in the applause."

dhee AH·fuhl SAHS KAHZD uh PAHZ ihn dhee uh·PLAHZ

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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