t/t/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Keep your jaw relaxed. Stop the air, then release with a puff.
How to pronounce toothbrush in American English
TOOTH·bruhsh
Start here
Americans pronounce toothbrush as TOOTH-bruhsh (/ˈtuθˌbrʌʃ/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "I need to buy a new toothbrush" or "I packed a shirt, a pair of pants, and my toothbrush" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "toothbrush".
2 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
oo/u/
Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.
th/θ/
Place the very tip of your tongue slightly between your teeth. Blow air gently around it without voicing.
b/b/
Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.
r/r/
Curl or bunch your tongue without letting the tip touch the roof of your mouth. Brace the sides of your tongue against your upper back teeth, and round your lips slightly.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
In real conversation
Hear "toothbrush" 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
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch TOOTH — keep everything else short and quick.
tooth·BRUHSH→TOOTH·BRUHSH
02
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.
TOOTH·BRUHSH→TOOTH·BRUHSH
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "toothbrush" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "TOOTH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "TOOTH-bruhsh" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "toothbrush" 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 "TOOTH-bruhsh" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "toothbrush" 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 "TOOTH-bruhsh" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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