How to pronounce weights in American English

IPA /weɪts/ Syllables 1 · wayts Stress 1st syllable

WAYTS

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Americans pronounce weights as WAYTS (/weɪts/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Lifting weights builds muscle mass and bone density".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "weights".

1 syllable, 4 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

w/w/

Round your lips into a tight circle. Lift the back of your tongue toward the soft palate and add voice.

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.

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.

s/s/

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

In real conversation

Hear "weights" in the wild.

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

"Lifting weights builds muscle mass and bone density."

LIHF·tuhng WAYTS BIHLDZ MUH·suhl MAS and BOHN DEHN·suh·tee

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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