Euphony

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Euphony describes flowing and aesthetically pleasing speech. Poetry is often euphonic, as is well-crafted literary prose.

Many languages have phonological rules which promote euphony by making words easier to pronounce. For instance, languages often employ elision, the dropping of sounds which make a word difficult to pronounce. On the other hand, epenthesis occurs when a sound is added to a word for pronunciation purposes. Contractions are a form of elision that eliminate awkward gaps between words. The French language is, for the most part, an example of a euphonious language, and has a plethora of contraction rules that allow one word to flow into the next.

Poets and writers attempting to create euphony in their work draw on literary devices such as alliteration and internal rhyme.

Translators often have difficulty in expressing the euphony of a text of another language.

Synonyms and antonyms

The opposite of euphony is cacophony, which refers to harsh sounds. Closely related to cacophony is dissonance, which implies a combination of tones or sounds that clash together. The opposite of dissonance, similar to euphony, is consonance. Dissonance and consonance have musical connotations whereas cacophony and euphony more often refer to speech.

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