any one of the set of smallest units in a writing system that represents a speech sound and can make the difference between one word and another. In English, the ‘s’ in sip and the ‘sh’ in ship represent two different graphemes. 字位，书写单位（语言书写系统的最小有意义单位） Word Origin1930s: from graph ‘a visual symbol representing a unit of sound or other feature of speech’ + -eme.