/feuh net"iks, foh-/ , n. ( used with a sing. v. )
1. the science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription. Cf. acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics, auditory phonetics, physiological phonetics .
2. the phonetic system or the body of phonetic facts of a particular language.
3. the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language.
[ 1835-45; see PHONETIC, -ICS ]