Accent
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): (n.) A word; a significant tone
(2): (n.) Stress laid on certain syllables of a verse.
(3): (n.) Modulation of the voice in speaking; manner of speaking or pronouncing; peculiar or characteristic modification of the voice; tone; as, a foreign accent; a French or a German accent.
(4): (n.) A mark or character used in writing, and serving to regulate the pronunciation; esp.: (a) a mark to indicate the nature and place of the spoken accent; (b) a mark to indicate the quality of sound of the vowel marked; as, the French accents.
(5): (n.) expressions in general; speech.
(6): (n.) The rhythmical accent, which marks phrases and sections of a period.
(7): (n.) A regularly recurring stress upon the tone to mark the beginning, and, more feebly, the third part of the measure.
(8): (n.) A mark placed at the right hand of a letter, and a little above it, to distinguish magnitudes of a similar kind expressed by the same letter, but differing in value, as y', y.
(9): (n.) A mark at the right hand of a number, indicating minutes of a degree, seconds, etc.; as, 12'27, i. e., twelve minutes twenty seven seconds.
(10): (n.) A mark used to denote feet and inches; as, 6' 10 is six feet ten inches.
(11): (n.) A special emphasis of a tone, even in the weaker part of the measure.
(12): (n.) The expressive emphasis and shading of a passage.
(13): (v. t.) To express the accent of (either by the voice or by a mark); to utter or to mark with accent.
(14): (v. t.) To mark emphatically; to emphasize.
(15): (n.) A superior force of voice or of articulative effort upon some particular syllable of a word or a phrase, distinguishing it from the others.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
in a grammatical sense, is the tone or stress of the voice upon a particular syllable, which is the means of distinguishing or separating words in rapid enunciation, and is not to be confounded with the rhythmical or musical ictus or force which regulates poetry or metre, and is, at the same time, independent of the prosodiacal quantity. In English, as in most European languages, there is no fixed rule for the position of the accent, which often differs in words formed after the same analogy. In Latin, in the absence of all positive information as to how the Romans themselves pronounced their language, at least in this particular, an arbitrary rule has been invented and generally acceded to by scholars of all nations, by which the tone is placed upon every long penult, and upon the antepenult of words having a short or doubtful ("common") vowel in the penult. Many apply the same rule to the Greek language; but, as this has a written accent, the custom, still preserved among the modern Greeks, is gradually prevailing, of conforming the spoken to the written tone. In Hebrew the place of the accent is carefully designated in the common or Masoretic text (see R. Jehuda Ibn Balam, Treatise on the Poetic Accents, in Heb., Paris, 1556; reprinted with annotations; Amst. 1858), although the Jews of some nations, disregarding this, pronounce the words with the accent on the penult, after the analogy of modern languages, and as is done by natives in speaking Syriac and Arabic (see J. D. Michaelis, Apfangsgrunde der Hebr. Accentuation, Hall. 1741; Hirts, Einleit. in d. Hebr. Abtheilungskunst, Jena, 1762; Spitzner, Idea Analyticae V. T. ex Accentibus, Lips. 1769; Stern, Grindl. Lehre d. Flebr. Accentuation, Frankf. 1840). In words anglicized from the Greek the Latin rules are observed for the accent; and in those introduced from the Hebrew, as they have mostly come to us through the Vulgate, the same principle is in the main adhered to. so far as applicable, though with great irregularity and disagreement among orthoepists, and generally to the utter neglect of the proper Hebrew tone. In pronouncing Scripture and other foreign names, therefore, care should be taken to conform to the practice of the best speakers and readers, rather than to any affected or pedantic standard, however exact in itself (see Worcester's Eng. Dict. 1860, Append.).
