2 syllables: Qui, nine. Stress on Qui.
KWEYE-neyen
/ˈkwaɪˌnaɪn/
Quinine is pronounced KWEYE-neyen (/ˈkwaɪˌnaɪn/). It has two syllables (Qui-nine), with the stress on "Qui". Quinine is a bitter alkaloid formerly used to treat malaria and fever, derived from the cinchona tree. It is also used today in small quantities as a flavoring agent and in tonic water. The term refers to the compound as well as its historical medicinal role in colonial and pharmacological contexts.
nounQuinine is a bitter alkaloid formerly used to treat malaria and fever, derived from the cinchona tree. It is also used today in small quantities as a flavoring agent and in tonic water. The term refers to the compound as well as its historical medicinal role in colonial and pharmacological contexts.
"The patent medicine claimed to cure fevers, but contained quinine instead."
"Quinine powder gave tonic water its distinctive bite."
"Researchers studied quinine to understand its antimalarial properties."
Quinine is pronounced /ˈkwaɪniːn/. The first syllable has a stressed /kwaɪ/ with a long I as in 'lie', followed by /niːn/ where the final 'een' is a long vowel and the final 'n' is a clear nasal. Tip: start with a light 'k' release into /kwaɪ/ then glide into /niːn/. You’ll hear the stress on QUI-, and avoid pronouncing it as ‘kwai-neen’ with equal emphasis.
Common errors include misplacing the stress (say-ing ‘kwih-NEEN’), truncating the final long 'een' to a short 'een' (/ˈkwaɪnɪn/), and merging the /ɪ/ into /iː/ without a clear boundary. Correct by emphasizing the first syllable and ensuring your vowel in the second syllable is a long /iː/ before the final /n/: /ˈkwaɪniːn/. Practice with a slow pace to keep the long vowels distinct.
In all main accents, quinine centers on /ˈkwaɪniːn/. US tends to maintain a rounded lip posture for the /w/ and a crisp final /n/. UK and AU share similar rhotic pronunciations, with minor vowel quality differences; some speakers in AU may have a slightly shorter /iː/ than UK. Overall, the word remains non-rhotic in some casual UK speech when followed by a pause, but standard reference pronunciation remains rhotic and clearly enunciated.
Quinine combines a stressed diphthong /aɪ/ in the first syllable with a long high front vowel /iː/ in the second, plus a final nasal /n/. The adjacent /w/ from /kwaɪ/ can slow articulation, and many learners misplace stress or shorten the second vowel. The tricky part is preserving two distinct vowel qualities back-to-back and finishing with a clean alveolar nasal, ensuring the long second vowel is heard clearly.
Is the 'qu' in quinine pronounced as /kw/ rather than /k/ alone? Yes. The 'qu' at the start produces a /k/ followed by /w/ transition: /ˈkwaɪniːn/. The combination yields a bilabial-velar onset where the lips round slightly for /w/ before moving to the high front tongue position for /ɪ/ or /iː/. This is why you hear a 'kw' cluster leading into the diphthong.
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Quinine traces its name to the Spanish quinina, from quinina, used by early European scholars in the 18th century to label the compound isolated from the bark of the South American cinchona tree. The bark had long been used by Indigenous people in Peru and Bolivia for fevers and malaria. The plant yielded an active alkaloid later identified and purified in the 19th century, when chemists isolated quinine from quinidine and related alkaloids. The term entered English through medical writing in the late 1600s and gained prominence as quinine-based therapies and beverages (notably tonic water) spread globally during colonial and scientific explorations. The word’s spelling stabilized in the 19th century, aligning with other "-ine" alkaloids, and its pronunciation settled into /ˈkwaɪniːn/ in most English varieties. First known use in print appears in pharmacopoeias and botanical texts of the 18th century, with the modern sense of a compound used to treat malaria established by the mid-19th century.
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💡 These words have similar meanings to "Quinine" and can often be used interchangeably.
🔄 These words have opposite meanings to "Quinine" and show contrast in usage.
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Words that rhyme with "Quinine"
-ine sounds
Practice with these rhyming pairs to improve your pronunciation consistency:
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