French pronunciation
The letter combinations œil and œill have no English equivalent: they are pronounced like the oo in "foot" plus a "y" sound. The IPA spelling is [œj], and the Lawless phonetic spelling is [ooy].
Note that œill in a multi-syllable word is pronounced [œj] but the y sound is transferred to the second syllable: for example, œillade is pronounced [œ jad].
| Par exemple… |
| un œil | eye | |
| une œillade | wink | |
| un œillet | carnation | |
| une œillette | poppy | |
| un œilleton | eyepiece, spyhole |
The sound [œj] is spelled œil only at the beginning of a word. Other spellings:
Related lessons
- Special character: œ ligature
- Letters: O | E | I | L
- French vowels
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