- involving the sounds, production, or transcription of speech:Many children learn to read phonetically, by sounding out the letters of each word.Peas and beans are linked phonetically not only by the repeated vowel sound, but also by the initial consonants—the sounds p and b are both produced in the same way.
- according to the way something is pronounced:When he has to write words he doesn’t know, Jabez gets his point across by spelling phonetically.
