4 syllables: fa, ta, li, ty. Stress on ta.
fuh-TAL-it-ee
/fəˈtælɪti/
fatality is pronounced fuh-TAL-it-ee (/fəˈtælɪti/). It has four syllables (fa-ta-li-ty), with the stress on "ta". Fatality refers to a death resulting from an accident, injury, or other event. It denotes the outcome of a particular incident, often used in legal, medical, or safety contexts. The term emphasizes the occurrence of death rather than the event itself, and is commonly found in formal reporting and analysis.
Fatality refers to a death resulting from an accident, injury, or other event. It denotes the outcome of a particular incident, often used in legal, medical, or safety contexts. The term emphasizes the occurrence of death rather than the event itself, and is commonly found in formal reporting and analysis.
"The investigation concluded that the crash resulted in several fatalities."
"Public health officials tracked fatalities from the outbreak over the following months."
"The project aimed to reduce road fatalities by implementing stricter speed limits."
Pronounce it as /ˌfeɪˈtælɪti/. The main stress is on the second syllable: fa-TA-li-ty, with clear separation: fei-TA-li-tee. Start with the /feɪ/ diphthong like “fey,” then /ˈtæl/ as in “tall,” followed by /ɪ/ as in “sit,” and end with /ti/ like “tee.” Keep the final /i/ light and quick. An audio reference you can compare to is standard dictionary pronunciations in Cambridge/Oxford, or authoritative YouGlish clips for natural speech. Practicing the two primary stress points helps you sound natural in both formal and technical contexts.
Two common errors are flattening the second syllable stress and mispronouncing the final -ity as a hard ‘ee’ or ‘ee-ty’ ending. Corrective tips: emphasize the /ˈtæl/ syllable with a short, crisp /æ/ and keep the final -ity as /ɪti/, not /iː/; ensure the /ti/ at the end is light and quick rather than a drawn-out /tiː/. Some learners also overemphasize the initial /feɪ/ or misplace stress on the first syllable. Listen to native pronunciations and practice the two primary stress points to maintain natural rhythm.
In US, UK, and AU accents, the core vowels remain /feɪ/ in the first syllable and /ˈtæl/ in the second, with /ɪ/ in the third and /ti/ at the end. The main differences lie in vowel quality and rhoticity: US is rhotic, so you’ll hear /ˌfeɪˈtælɪti/ with an r-colored influence on the preceding vowels in connected speech; UK often has crisper /t/ and less rhotic influence in non-rhotic accents; AU tends to be similar to UK but with slightly broader vowel qualities and a more centralized /ɪ/ in some speakers. The final /ti/ remains /ti/ in all three, though tempo and vowel length can vary slightly. Practice with local speakers and authoritative dicts to feel the nuance across regions.
The difficulty centers on the multi-syllabic rhythm and the final -ity cluster, which yields /ɪti/ rather than a single syllable. The two main challenges are the middle /ˈtæl/ stress and the quick, light /ti/ ending after a settled /ɪ/—you don’t want a heavy final syllable. Learners also under-pronounce or fuse the syllables in rapid speech, making the word sound like ‘fatal-ity’ with reduced clarity. Practice slow, then speed up while maintaining crisp articulation of /t/ and /ɪ/ combined with /ti/. Use minimal pairs to stabilize the final nontonic segment.
A common area of confusion is whether the word should have a long vs short vowel in the first syllable as in /feɪ/ vs /fiː/. The correct form uses /feɪ/ as in 'fay', a clear diphthong where the mouth begins with /f/ then glides from /eɪ/ toward a lighter /eɪ/. The stress remains secondary on the second syllable (/ˈtæl/), not on the first or last. This aligns with standard dictionaries and professional reporting usage, ensuring your speech sounds precise and authoritative when discussing incidents and statistics.
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US: rhoticity affects linking and vowel length; keep /feɪˈtælɪti/ with a pronounced /r/ only appears in some speakers in connected speech. UK: crisper /t/ and less rhotic influence; maintain /feɪˈtælɪti/ with precise /t/ and short /ɪ/; AU: subtle vowel shifts but similar to UK, often with broader vowel quality and slightly more centralized /ɪ/. For all: practice the two-stress pattern and final /ti/. Use IPA references, listen to native speakers, and mimic mouth shape: lips rounded for /eɪ/, jaw lowered for /æ/, tip of tongue behind upper teeth for /t/, and the final /tɪ/ with light, quick release.
Fatality derives from the Latin fatalitas, meaning fate or destiny, which itself comes from fatum ‘fate’ with the suffix -itas indicating quality or state. The root fat- relates to fate, doom, or destined outcome. In Middle English and Early Modern English, fatalitas appeared in legal and theological contexts to describe a doomed or fateful event, especially death caused by misfortune rather than intentional act. Over time, the word narrowed to its current medical-legal usage: the occurrence of death as a consequence of an accident or disaster, rather than a general sense of fate. The first known uses appear in Latin texts and later medieval Latin medical writings; in English, it began appearing in the 16th to 17th centuries, increasingly in clinical and safety reporting as industrialization and public health surveillance expanded. By the 19th and 20th centuries, fatality had become standard in risk assessment, safety statistics, and forensic reporting, maintaining a formal, often solemn tone. The semantic shift from broader fate to a precise, countable outcome (a fatality) mirrors similar words like casualty, mortality, and lethality. Modern usage frequently appears in statistics (fatality rate) and incident reports.
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Words that rhyme with "fatality"
-ity sounds
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