HOW TO PRONOUNCE
abysmal
/əˈbɪzməl/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:47
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Stress the short “i” in the middle.
Begin with a light uh, then give biz the main beat. The s represents a voiced z sound here, and the final syllable stays brief and unstressed.
3 syllables · Stress on syllable 2
TRY SAYING
“The reviewer called the weather abysmal.”
APG practice sentence · CC BY-SA 4.0
CMU Pronouncing Dictionary ↗What does abysmal mean?
adjective
- (figuratively) Extremely bad; terrible.
More meanings (1)
adjective
- (archaic) Pertaining to, or resembling an abyss.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/əˈbɪzməl/
Pronunciation used in the listening tip.
CMU Pronouncing Dictionary ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
Another sigh, deeper, more tremendous still, came from the abysmal depths of a soul.
The thought that the divine Dejah Thoris might fall into the clutches of such an abysmal atavism started the cold sweat upon me.
More book examples (3)
I broke the Night's primeval bars, I dared the old abysmal curse, And flashed through ranks of frightened stars Suddenly on the universe!
Like an atom, like a breath of to-day, we were suddenly confronted by abysmal geologic time,--the eternities past and the eternities to come.
Zarathustra calls himself the advocate of the circle (the Eternal Recurrence of all things), and he calls this doctrine his abysmal thought.