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# grapheme

noun (a grapheme, graphemes)

«grapheme» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

A grapheme is a letter or group of letters that stands for one sound (phoneme) in writing, like «sh» in ship or «igh» in night. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#m1)

### In the lessons

In English and phonics lessons in UK, Australian and New Zealand schools, children learn graphemes and the sounds they make. One sound can be written with different graphemes: the sound «ee» can be ee (see), ea (sea), e (me) or y (happy). Phrases: grapheme–phoneme correspondence (GPC), split grapheme (a\_e in cake), digraph (two-letter grapheme), trigraph (three letters).

### Examples

- The word «ship» has three graphemes: sh, i, p. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#x1)
- «igh» in «light» is a three-letter grapheme. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#x2)
- The split grapheme a\_e makes «cap» into «cape». [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#x3)
- Our teacher put the new grapheme on the phonics wall. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#x4)
- How many graphemes are in the word «boat»? [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#x5)
- The sound «f» can be spelled with the grapheme ph, as in phone. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/#x6)

### Note

Countable. A phoneme is a sound; a grapheme is how it is written. A grapheme is not always one letter: «ch» is one grapheme of two letters. Counting graphemes is not the same as counting letters.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «grapheme» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapheme/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«grapheme» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/grapheme.html) on Mova free.