[a. Fr. accent, OFr. acent:—L. accent-um f. ad to + cantus singing, a literal rendering of Gr. προσῳδία, f. πρός to + ᾠδή song, lit. ‘song added to’ sc. speech: see note under sense 1.]
1. A prominence given to one syllable in a word, or in a phrase, over the adjacent syllables, independently of the mode in which this prominence is produced.
Accent in Gr. (προσῴδία) is explained by Dion. Hal. περὶ συνθέσεως ὀνομάτων ch. xi. as a distinct difference of musical pitch in pronouncing the syllables of a word, those having the grave or heavy accent (βαρεῖα gravis) being spoken at a comparatively low pitch, those having the acute or sharp accent (ὀξεῖα acūtus) being spoken as nearly as possible a musical Fifth higher (διὰ πέντε), and those having the circumflex accent (περισπωμένη circumflexus) beginning in the high pitch and descending a Fifth during the pronunciation of the same syllable. The same three varieties occurred in Latin, but their positions in a word followed very different laws. This variety of pitch disappeared for both Latin and Greek towards the end of the Third Century A.D. when the feeling of quantity was lost, and the high pitch in Greek and Latin became merely greater force, and this stress accent has remained the substitute for musical accent in modern Greek, in Italian and Spanish, and is also found in German and English. In Swedish and Norwegian a musical syllabic accent remains in use; in Danish it is replaced in some circumstances by a peculiar catch, and in others by stress, as in English. In French, where probably stress was at one time strongly marked, the difference for at least three centuries has been so slight that writers have disputed as to its nature and the position of the stress syllable. In all languages having the stress, a variable alteration of pitch and quality of tone always prevails, and is used to express varieties of feeling. This expression belongs to rhetoric. The grammatical varieties of accent in English are great, but are all varieties of stress. The position is fixed in words of more than one syllable. Monosyllables have various degrees of stress according to circumstances. Hence the distinction of syllabic accent for the first, and verbal accent, phrase accent, or emphasis for the second. (A. J. Ellis.)
1581. Sidney, Def. Poesie (1622), 529. Though we doe not obserue quantitie, yet we obserue the accent very precisely.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (1811), II. vi. 65. To that which was highest lift vp and most eleuate or shrillest in the eare, they gaue the name of the sharpe accent, to the lowest and most base because it seemed to fall downe rather than to rise vp, they gaue the name of the heauy accent, and that other which seemed in part to lift vp and in part to fall downe, they called the circumflex, or compast accent: and if new termes were not odious, we might very properly call him the (windabout) for so is the Greek word.
a. 1637. B. Jonson, Eng. Gramm. (1696). All our vowels are sounded doubtfully. In quantity (which is time) long or short. Or, in accent (which is tune) sharp or fiat.
1748. J. Mason, Elocution, 26. When we distinguish any particular syllable in a word with a strong Voice, it is called Accent; and when we thus distinguish any particular Word in a Sentence it is called Emphasis.
1871. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue, xii. 525. Accent is the elevation of the voice which distinguishes one part of a word from another.
2. a. The marks by which the nature and position of the spoken accent were indicated in a word.
The old Latin forms (´) acūtus, (`) gravis, (^) circumflexus, are retained, but each one now represents mere stress, except in works on elocution where (´) now generally represents a rising (not a fixed high) pitch; (`) a falling pitch (the ancient circumflex), and (^) a rising followed by a falling pitch, not used in ancient Latin and Greek. Some writers use (^) for length only, the same as (¯). The old meanings are quite lost. (A. J. E.)
b. Marks used to distinguish the different qualities of sound indicated by a letter, called diacritical accents.
The old ´ ` ^ are mostly used, as French e é è ê in je, été, tiède, même, but a great variety of other signs have also been introduced. These diacritical accents sometimes distinguish meaning only, as French a à, la là. These marks are not used in English orthography. But sometimes ` is used to show that -ed is to be pronounced as a distinct syllable, as learnèd, hallowèd, and some write é for a final e pronounced, as Hallé (properly German Halle). (A. J. E.)
1596. Spenser, State of Irel., 30. Being likewise distinguished with pricke and accent, as theirs aunciently.
1611. Florio, Accento: an accent or point ouer anie letter to giue it a due sound.
1611. Cotgr., Accent aigu: a sharp accent marked thus, ´, and much used. Accentuer: to marke, note, or pronounce, with an Accent.
c. 1620. Hume, Orthogr. Brit. Tongue (1865), 22. The grave accent is never noated, but onelie understood in al syllabes quherin the acute and circumflex is not.
1807. Robinson, Archæol. Græca, V. xiii. 470. The ancient Greeks used no accents, which are supposed to have been invented and introduced about two hundred years before Jesus Christ. After the Greek language became the favourite study of foreigners, it was necessary to facilitate the pronunciation of it by applying marks of accent for that purpose: and this, very probably, induced Aristophanes of Byzantium to invent and introduce those accentual virgulae.
c. Marks of various kinds placed over and under the consonants in Hebrew, serving as signs of tone and of interpunctuation; hence fig. the minutest particular (of the Mosaic law).
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 443. That we, who sift every pricke and accent of the law, may see the upright simplicity of that age.
1659. B. Walton, Considerator Corsidered, 264. The Masorites … invented the names and figures of the vowels and accents, which they have left to posterity: though the later Grammarians herein differ from the ancienter about the names, nature, number, and use.
3. The mode of utterance peculiar to an individual, locality, or nation, as ‘he has a slight accent, a strong provincial accent, an indisputably Irish, Scotch, American, French or German accent.’
This utterance consists mainly in a prevailing quality of tone, or in a peculiar alteration of pitch, but may include mispronunciation of vowels or consonants, misplacing of stress, and misinflection of a sentence. The locality of a speaker is generally clearly marked by this kind of accent. (A. J. E.)
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. ii. 359. Your accent is something finer, then you could purchase in so remoued a dwelling.
1602. Daniel, Musoph., st. cli. Our accent’s equal to the best.
c. 1620. Hume, Orthogr. Brit. Tongue (1865), 27. We fynd the south and north to differ more in accent then symbol.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 29, ¶ 4. The Tone, or (as the French call it) the Accent of every Nation in their ordinary Speech is altogether different from that of every other people…. By the Tone or Accent I do not mean the Pronunciation of each particular Word, but the Sound of the whole Sentence.
1772. Johnson, in Boswell’s Life, II. 14. I have been correcting several Scotch accents in my friend Boswell.
1789. T. Jefferson, Wks., 1859, II. 559. He spoke French without the least foreign accent.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 247. Accent is a kind of chanting; all men have accent of their own,—though they only notice that of others.
1860. Hawthorne, Marble Faun (1868), I. XII. 128. There is Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins … and a right English accent on her tongue.
4. The way in which anything is said; pronunciation, utterance, tone, voice; sound, modulation or modification of the voice expressing feeling.
1538. Bp. Bonner, in Foxe, A. & M. (Catley), V. 155. He said with a sharp accent.
1604. Shaks., Oth., I. i. 75. Rod. Ile call aloud. Iago. Doe, with like timerous accent, and dire yell.
1644. Milton, Education, Wks. 1738, 138. And solemnly pronounced with right accent & grace.
1699. Dryden, Tales from Chaucer, Good Parson, 16. Mild was his accent, and his action free. With eloquence innate his tongue was arm’d.
1725. Pope, Odyssey, X. 402. Transform’d to beasts, with accents not their own.
1727. Swift, Poisoning of Curll, Wks. 1755, III. I. 151. What this poor unfortunate man spoke, was so indistinct, and in such broken accents.
1768. Sterne, Sent. Journey (1778), I. 123. I thought by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Book, I. 43. The accents of those we love soften the harshest tidings.
1831. Scott, Abbot, ii. 20. Echoing the question with a strong accent of displeasure and surprise.
1847. Hamilton, Rewards & Punishm. (1853), iii. 120. The very accents of consultation are heard.
5. poet. A significant tone or sound; a word; in pl. speech, language; including both the tones and their meaning.
1595. Shaks., K. John, V. vi. 95. Pardon me, That any accent breaking from thy tongue, Should scape … mine eare. Ibid. (1601), Jul. C., III. i. 113. How many Ages hence Shall this our lofty Scene be acted ouer, In State[s] vnborne, and Accents yet vnknowne?
1663. Butler, Hudibras, I. iii. 186. Forcing the Vallies to repeat The Accents of his sad regret.
1718. Pope, Iliad, III. 285. The copious accents fall, with easy art.
1777. Sir W. Jones, An Ode of Petrarch, 66. Soft-breathing gales, my dying accents hear.
1817. Byron, Manf., III. iv. (1868), 312. In thy gasping throat The accents rattle.
1857. Emerson, Poems, 16. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost.
6. Prosody. The stress laid at more or less fixed intervals on certain syllables of a verse, the succession of which constitutes the rhythm or measure of the verse.
English verse is theoretically marked by a periodical recurrence of strong syllables, having a loud stress, a certain number of times in a line, separated by one or two weak or unaccented syllables. The habits of poets do not however carry out this theoretical law. Thus in ‘to err is human, to forgive divine,’ theory would require to to be strong; similarly in ‘for the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,’ theory would require the first syllable in craven to be weak and both groom and said to be as weak as the -ver and a which follow. They are not so. Hence has arisen the conception of rhythmically or metrically accented and unaccented syllables, as distinguished from the grammatically or verbally accented syllables. Thus, in the above examples, to has the rhythmical and not the verbal or phrase accent, and craven has the syllabic but not the rhythmical accent; err has both verbal and rhythmical accent, divine has both syllabic and rhythmical accent. (A. J. E.)
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., IV. ii. 124. You finde not the apostraphas, and so misse the accent.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (1811), II. iii. 59. Your ordinarie rimers vse very much their measures in the odde as nine and eleuen, and the sharpe accent vpon the last sillable, which therefore makes him go ill fauouredly.
1871. Abbott & Seeley, Eng. Lessons for Eng. People, 152. Accent in Metre, if it fall on any syllable in a word, must fall on the principal Word-accent. Accent in Metre may fall on syllables that have not a distinct word-accent. We can never have three consecutive clearly pronounced syllables without a Metrical Accent.
7. Music. Anciently: the marks placed over words to show the various notes or turns or phrases to which they were to be sung, these generated the neumes and the latter the notes. In modern music: stress recurring at intervals of time which are generally fixed, but may be varied by syncopation and cross accentuation.
1609. J. Douland, Ornithop. Microl., 69. Accent (as it belonged to Church-men) is a melody, pronouncing regularly the syllables of any words, according as the naturall accent of them requires.
1795. Mason, Ch. Music, i. 11. In respect to Accent, Rhythm and Cadence, Music becomes an object of criticism which supersedes what is purely harmonical.
1809. Callcott, Mus. Gram., 41. The bars of music are not only useful for dividing the Movement into equal Measures, but also for shewing the Notes upon which the Accent is to be laid…. In the course of this work the accented will be termed the strong parts, and the unaccented the weak parts of a measure.
1867. Macfarren, Harmony, i. 4. The sense comprising rhythm, accent, and numberless delicate gradations.
8. fig. Distinctive stress, force, sharpness, or intensity; a distinction, or distinguishing mark, character or tone.
1639. Fuller, Holy War (1840), V. xxi. 278. Now these are the several accents of honour in the German Service.
1647. Ward, Simple Cobler (1843), 37. The accent of the blow shall fall there.
1655. Gurnall, Christian in Arm., I. 27. That which gave accent to Abraham’s Faith, was that he was ‘fully perswaded, that what God had promised, he was able to perform.’
1662. Fuller, Worthies, II. 108. Marsh made amends for all these failings with his final constancy, being both burnt and scalded to death (having a barrel of pitch placed over his head, an accent of cruelty peculiar to him alone).
1863. A. Gilchrist, Life of W. Blake, I. 41. The interior, with its galleries … and elaborately decorated apsidal dwarf-chancel, has an imposing effect and a strongly marked characteristic accent (of its day) already historical and interesting.
