Monosyllabic words

Monosyllabic words are words that have only one syllable. They are also called monosyllables or monosyllabic words.

Examples of Monosyllabic words

• father;
• mother;
• hand;
• bread;
• there;
• foot;
• my;
• It hurts;
• sky;
• good;
• good;
• pain;
• flower;
• law;
• light;
• sea;
• bad;
• nut;
• tire;
• Sun;
• train;
• turn;
• voice;
• …

The difficulty in identifying Monosyllabic words arises in the syllable division of small words with diphthongs, such as pneu, mais and dois, as they are easily confused with disyllable words.

Stressed monosyllables and unstressed monosyllables

Monosyllabic words can be classified into stressed and unstressed.

Stressed monosyllables 

are pronounced strongly and have their own meaning.

Examples of stressed monosyllables:

• Yes;
• salt;
• south;
• dust;
• bad;
• see;
• in;
• defendant;
• month;
• three;
• there;
• no;
• …

Unstressed monosyllables

 are weakly pronounced and have no meaning of their own, just linking elements in the sentence.

Examples of unstressed monosyllables:

• me;
• you;
• if;
• O;
• The;
• you;
• to the;
• one;
• in;
• in;
• The;
• with;
• It is;
• nor;
• but;
• …

See more examples of stressed and unstressed monosyllables .

Classification according to the number of syllables

Words can be classified according to the number of syllables they contain. This classification regarding the number of syllables is based on the syllable division.

According to the number of syllables the word has, it can be classified into:

• monosyllable;
• disyllable;
• trisyllable;
• polysyllable.

monosyllabic

A word is monosyllabic when it consists of one syllable:

• Yes;
• saw;
• It is;
• what;
• already;
• …

disyllabic

A word is disyllabic when it consists of two syllables:

• paper;
• bed;
• pie;
• clothing;
• happy;

trisyllabic

A word is trisyllabic when it consists of three syllables:

• gossip;
• shirt;
• friend;
• boy;
• school;

polysyllabic

A word is polysyllabic when it consists of four or more syllables:

• curiosity;
• butterfly;
• refrigerator;
• unfortunately;
• ambiguity;