polyphone
/ˈpɑlɪfoʊn/
noun
- A letter or symbol that represents more than one sound.
- The teacher explained that 'ough' is a polyphone with multiple pronunciations like 'though' and 'rough'.
- Linguists study polyphones to understand spelling variations across languages.
- In English, the letter 'c' is a polyphone because it can sound like /k/ in 'cat' or /s/ in 'city'.