Near-minimal pair

From Fresh Dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Alternative spellings 1.2 Etymology 1.3 Noun 1.4 Related terms

English

Alternative spellings

• near minimal pair

Etymology

near + minimal pair

Noun

near-minimal pair (plural: near-minimal pairs)

1. (linguistics) A pair of words differing by a few (but more than one) phonetic segments or suprasegments, used to suggest a proposed phoneme, toneme, or chroneme may be valid.

Related terms

• minimal pair