That difficult -gh- letter pattern is from the Anglo- Saxons - daughter, night, cough, dough, bright... the -gh- used to be -h- and pronounced like the Scottish loch, a hard sound - until the French invaded and messed around with our spelling and added the g. Then the -gh- became silent or pronounced with a 'f' sound.
A silent letter is a letter that isn't heard when a particular word is pronounced. Think of the “b” in subtle, the “a” in bread, and the “h,” in ghost. Almost every word in the alphabet plays the role of a silent letter in at least one word.
B. Most silent b's come at the ends of words and just after m: bomb, climb, comb, crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, numb, plumb, thumb, tomb.
A common silent letter pair is 'gh' in words such as light, right, fight, and high.
“Daughter” has had several pronunciations over the centuries, including DOCH-ter (with the first syllable like the Scottish “loch”), DAFF-ter (rhyming with “laughter'”) and DAW-ter.
In the word, 'scissors', the 'c' is silent.
The letter ⟨k⟩ is normally silent (i.e. it does not reflect any sound) when it precedes an ⟨n⟩ at the beginning of a word, as in “knife”, and sometimes by extension in other positions.
In other words, the “gh” is silent, like in fought /fɔt/, caught /kɑːt/ high /haɪ/, and thigh /θaɪ/.
Many students try to pronounce these Ls, but in all these words, the L is completely silent. In walk, chalk, and talk, the L comes after an A, and the vowel is pronounced like a short O. Half and calf have an AL, too, but the vowel is pronounced like the short A in staff.
What is the origin of the silent 'b' at the end of English words such as lamb, comb, crumb and bomb? WE OWE the silent 'b' to the fact that centuries ago our ancestors pronounced a b-sound: climb was Old English climban, and bomb comes from Italian bomba. The b-sound was lost by about 1300.
Silent b is introduced in the word 'lamb'. To help remember this silent letter, there is a story of how the word was originally spelt – lambaz – in old Germanic. Over time the 'baz' at the end of the word was dropped from the pronunciation but the 'b' remained in the spelling of the word.
Except for the word marijuana, there is no other word in the English Language where J is silent.
Other key words with silent 'c's include: ascend, ascent/descent, fascinate, fluorescent, incandescent, obscene, scene, scenario or scented.
u. Never pronounced after the letter 'q', as in queue, antique and queen, but also silent with other vowels, for example biscuit, guest, rogue, and disguise.
Notice, the K is silent.
Most Finns don't know that the letter t in the form "buffet" is silent (and that the letter u is pronounced [y]) and are not sure how to decline this form because Finnish nouns don't end in -t in the singular.
Silent D: The letter D is silent when it comes just before the letters N and G. Examples: Wednesday, pledge, grudge, cadge. The letter D is also not pronounced in the following common words: handsome, handkerchief, sandwich.
In the word 'sandwich', if you looked that up in the dictionary, you WOULD see the D sound. But it's actually never pronounced that way. So Wednesday, Handsome: the dictionary says no D.
The letter D is silent in some words that pair it up with the letter G, as in bridge, ridge, edge, ledge, and hedge.
Save This Word! This shows grade level based on the word's complexity. a female child or person in relation to her parents.
: a female offspring especially of human parents. : a female adopted child. : a human female descendant.
daughter | American Dictionary
a female child in relation to her parents: We have a son and a daughter.