How to pronounce sick in American English

IPA /sɪk/ Syllables 1 · sihk Stress 1st syllable

SIHK

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Americans pronounce sick as SIHK (/sɪk/). You'll hear it in sentences like "He feels a bit sick after eating six meals".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "sick".

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

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

ih/ɪ/

Drop your jaw slightly with relaxed lips. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and arch the top-front toward the roof.

k/k/

Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.

In real conversation

Hear "sick" in the wild.

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"He feels a bit sick after eating six meals."

hee FEELZ uh BIHT SIHK AF·ter EE·duhng SIHKS MEELZ

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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