unstressed

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *né

Proto-Indo-European *n̥-

Proto-Germanic *un-

Proto-West Germanic *un-

Old English un-

Middle English un-

English un-

English stressed

English unstressed

From un- + stressed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʌnˈstɹɛst/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛst

Adjective

unstressed (comparative more unstressed, superlative most unstressed)

1. (of a vowel) Not stressed or accentuated.
   • 2004 October 14, Don Ringe, “Old English maþelian, mæþlan, mǣlan”, in J. H. W. Penney, editor, Indo-European Perspectives: Studies in Honour of Anna Morpurgo Davies‎^[1], Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 427:

     Type D half-lines ending in words of this type are analysed by Hutcheson as ending in two completely unstressed syllables. That analysis must be descriptively correct for, say, the 10th cent.; whether it would have fitted the facts in the 8th cent. is much less clear.

   • 2024 August 27, William S. Annis, “A Reference Grammar of Na’vi”, in Learn Na'vi‎^[2], archived from the original on 2 June 2025, page 14:

     Due to the shape of the aspect infixes, ‹er› and ‹ol›, it is possible for the pseudovowels to occur immediately after their consonantal counterpart, as in *p‹ol›lltxe. When this happens in an unstressed syllable, the pseudovowel disappears, poltxe.

2. Not subject to stress.

Derived terms

• unstressedly
• unstressedness

Translations

not stressed or accentuated

• Belarusian: ненаціскны́ (njenaciskný)
• Bulgarian: неуда́рен (neudáren)
• Catalan: àton (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 非重讀的 / 非重读的 (fēi zhòngdú de)

• Czech: nepřízvučný
• Danish: tryksvag
• Dutch: onbeklemtoond (nl)
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Faroese: óherdur, herðingarveikur, áherðsluveikur
• Finnish: painoton (fi)
• French: non accentué, inaccentué (fr), atone (fr)
• German: unbetont (de)
• Hebrew: ללא טעם
• Hungarian: hangsúlytalan (hu)
• Italian: atono (it), disaccentato (it) (uncommon)
• Japanese: 強勢のない (きょうせいのない, kyōsei no nai)
• Korean: 강세가 없다 (gangse-ga eopda)
• Kyrgyz: басымсыз (basımsız)
• Polish: bezprzyciskowy (pl), nieakcentowany (pl)
• Portuguese: átono (pt), atónico (Portugal), atônico (Brazil)
• Romanian: aton (ro), atonic (ro)
• Russian: безуда́рный (ru) (bezudárnyj)
• Spanish: átono (es), inacentuado (es)
• Swedish: obetonad (sv)
• Ukrainian: ненаголо́шений (nenaholóšenyj)

not subject to stress

• Catalan: inaccentuat (ca)
• Finnish: stressitön (fi)
• Russian: ненапряжённый (ru) (nenaprjažónnyj)
• Spanish: non estresado