One syllable: grave.
grayv
/ɡɹeɪv/
grave is pronounced grayv (/ɡɹeɪv/). It has one syllable (grave), with the stress on "grave". Grave has two primary senses: as a noun referring to a burial site and as an adjective meaning serious or solemn. It can also describe a musical register or tone that is low in pitch. In context, pronunciation stays consistent, but meaning guides usage and collocations. The word’s vowel is short and tense, with the sense-dependent consonant cluster clarified by surrounding stress and phrasing.
Grave has two primary senses: as a noun referring to a burial site and as an adjective meaning serious or solemn. It can also describe a musical register or tone that is low in pitch. In context, pronunciation stays consistent, but meaning guides usage and collocations. The word’s vowel is short and tense, with the sense-dependent consonant cluster clarified by surrounding stress and phrasing.
- You may default to a lax /e/ instead of a clear /eɪ/ diphthong; ensure your jaw drops slightly and your tongue moves from mid-high to high-front to produce the glide from /e/ to /ɪ̈/ (actual IPA /eɪ/). - Final /v/ devoicing: keep voicing throughout and avoid closing the lips too hard—let the vocal cords vibrate for the /v/ sound. - Over-aspiration after /ɡ/: maintain a clean stop release; don’t introduce extra breath that obscures the following vowel. Practicing with minimal pairs like /ɡreɪv/ vs /ɡreɪf/ helps maintain contrast.
"- The grave was marked with a simple stone and fresh flowers."
"- His grave warnings about the economy proved prescient."
"- The note in the cello part sat in a deep, grave register."
Pronounce it as /ɡreɪv/. Start with a hard g, then a long A sound as in 'day,' and finish with a voiced v. The primary stress is on the single syllable. Keep your tongue high for the diphthong /eɪ/ and gently voice the final v. If you’re listening, you’ll notice a steady, closed jaw and a clean release on /v/.
Common errors include devoicing the final /v/ to /f/ and misplacing the /ɡ/ as a soft /ɟ/ or /g/ with lax release. Some learners gloss over the /reɪ/ diphthong, producing a flat /reː/ instead of the rising glide. To correct: ensure a full, voiced /v/ at the end, and practice the /eɪ/ as a crisp, moving diphthong from /e/ to /ɪ/ while keeping the tongue forward and lips unrounded for the /eɪ/ glide.
In US, UK, and AU, the initial /ɡ/ and /r/ are similar, but rhoticity can affect the linking of /ɹ/ in rapid speech. The /eɪ/ vowel tends to be a bright, fronted diphthong in American English, sometimes more centralized in British varieties. Australians typically maintain a clear /ɹ/ in careful speech but may have slightly less vowel height in the nucleus. Overall, the core /ɡreɪv/ is consistent, with minor vowel quality shifts and voicing stability across accents.
The challenge lies in mastering the short, precise onset /ɡ/ followed by a precise /reɪ/ diphthong and ensuring the final voiced /v/ is not devoiced in fast speech. Learners often shorten the diphthong or merge /ɡ/ with a softer stop, leading to confusion with 'gray' or 'graveyard.' Focusing on a clean release of /ɡ/ and a distinct, voiced /v/ helps maintain contrast with other similar words.
A distinctive feature is keeping the /ɡ/ release tight and the /eɪ/ diphthong upglide balanced with a strong, voiced /v/. This combination preserves the single-syllable solemn sound, which can be lost if the speaker shortens or slurs the diphthong into a simple /e/ or misarticulates the /v/. Practicing with a mirror helps ensure tongue blade elevation and lip rounding are precise.
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- US: Maintain rhoticity with a slightly raspier /ɹ/ if you include an /r/ cluster in connected speech; do not insert an extra vowel before /v/. The /eɪ/ diphthong is broader, with a noticeable glide from /e/ to /ɪ/. - UK: Slightly tighter jaw and less retroflex tongue curling; the /ɹ/ is typically non-rhotic in careful speech, so ensure no extra /r/ intrusion. - AU: Clear, relaxed lip rounding may occur, with a more centralized vowel height; keep the final /v/ voiced and audible.
Grave comes from the Old French grave, meaning heavy or serious, from Latin gravis ‘heavy, weighty, serious.’ In Middle English, grave meant heavy in sense or in character, and by extension a tomb or burial site—likely via sense of weight and finality associated with death. The shift from material heaviness to seriousness appears in 13th–15th centuries as people described solemn matters as grave, and later, as a noun for burial places. The consonantal form retained the hard g from Latin gravis when English borrowed the term, while the vowel quality evolved with Great Vowel Shift-era changes affecting vowel length and openness. By the 16th–18th centuries, grave denoted both an adjective (serious) and a noun (tomb) in English usage, with the musical sense (low-pitched tone) emerging in more specialized contexts later. First known uses appear in legal and scholarly texts describing tombs and solemn topics, gradually broadening to everyday expressions of seriousness and weight in discourse. The word thus carries a layered semantic history tied to weight, finality, and formality in social language, while preserving its core phonetic identity across dialects.
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💡 These words have similar meanings to "grave" and can often be used interchangeably.
🔄 These words have opposite meanings to "grave" and show contrast in usage.
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Words that rhyme with "grave"
-ave sounds
Practice with these rhyming pairs to improve your pronunciation consistency:
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