any one of the set of smallest units of speech in a language that make the difference between one word and another. In English, the /s/ sound in sip and the /z/ sound in zip represent two different phonemes. 音位，音素（区分单词的最小语音单位，英语 sip 中的 /s/ 和 zip 中的/z/ 是两个不同的音位）Word Originlate 19th cent.: from French phonème, from Greek phōnēma ‘sound, speech’, from phōnein ‘speak’.