How to pronounce pod in American English

IPA /pɑd/ Syllables 1 · pahd Stress 1st syllable

PAHD

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Americans pronounce pod as PAHD (/pɑd/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The dolphin gathered in a pod and swam near the boat".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "pod".

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.

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.

In real conversation

Hear "pod" in the wild.

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

"The dolphin gathered in a pod and swam near the boat."

dhuh DAHL·fuhn GA·dherd ihn uh PAHD and SWAM NEER dhuh BOHT

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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