Usage Note: Although educated 19th-century speakers of English would pronounce mores as (môrēz) according to the customary pronunciation of Latin in English-speaking countries at that time, 75 percent of the Usage Panel in 2005 found this same pronunciation unacceptable (although 5 percent actually preferred it). Nowadays, the accepted pronunciation is (môrāz), with a long a as in days and a (z) sound at the end. It is incorrect to pronounce it as a single syllable (môrz), and the pronunciation ending with an (s) sound, which more closely resembles the way the Latin word was actually pronounced by the Romans, may sound pretentious.