1. variant pronunciations of the same phoneme that do not change word meaning
Usage: linguistics; phonetics

Examples

• The aspirated and unaspirated ‘p’ sounds in English are allophones of the same phoneme.
• Students of linguistics learn to identify allophones in different languages.
• The ‘t’ in ‘top’ and ‘stop’ are allophones with different pronunciations.
• Native speakers usually don’t notice allophones because they don’t change meaning.
• Phonologists study how allophones vary in different phonetic environments.
• The dark and light ‘l’ sounds in English are common examples of allophones.