syllabicadj.n.

1755 S. Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Syllabick, relating to syllables.

1782 V. Knox Ess. (1819) I. xxiii. 132 There are many passages..which, if you attend to the accentual and not to the syllabic quantity, may be scanned like hexameter verses.

1795 W. Mason Ess. Eng. Church Music ii. 95 In the responses.., which are noted for various voices, this syllabic distinction is sufficiently attended to.

1852 Proc. Philol. Soc. 5 156 In English pronunciation syllabic quantity is..imperfectly marked.

1860 G. J. Adler tr. C. C. Fauriel Hist. Provençal Poetry i. 6 Versification founded on a combination of the rhyme with the syllabic accent.

1892 T. R. Lounsbury Stud. Chaucer I. iii. 286 In his endeavors to impart to the line syllabic regularity.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. (at cited word) There are two Kinds of Augmentations in the Greek: The first call'd Syllabic, which is when the Word is increas'd by a Syllable.

1837 G. Phillips Elem. Syriac Gram. 25 Whenever the noun in its primitive form receives a syllabic augment.

1888 H. Sweet Hist. Eng. Sounds (new ed.) §21 A sound which can form a syllable by itself is called syllabic... The distinction between syllabic and non-syllabic is generally parallel to that between vowel and consonant. But..‘vowellike’ or ‘liquid’ voiced consonants..are often also syllabic... Even voiceless consonants can be syllabic, as in pst, where the s is syllabically equivalent to a vowel.

1908 H. Sweet Sounds of Eng. § 149 In such a word as little litl the second l is so much more syllabic than the preceding voiceless stop that it assumes syllabic function.

1804 J. Barrow Trav. China vi. 270 [The Manchu writing-system] is alphabetic, or, more properly speaking, syllabic.

1838 P. S. Du Ponceau Diss. Nature & Char. Chinese Syst. Writing p. xii Syllabic alphabets, besides, have considerable advantages over those that we make use of.

1865 E. B. Tylor Res. Early Hist. Mankind v. 104 Writing his language in syllabic signs.

1875 P. Le P. Renouf Egypt. Gram. 1 All other Egyptian phonetic signs have syllabic values.

1884 W. Wright Empire of Hittites 70 A syllabic writing evidently of immense antiquity.

1923 L. Abercrombie in Times Lit. Suppl. 12 Apr. 247/1 English metre, according to many theorists, is neither syllabic nor quantitative, but simply accentual.

1965 A. F. Scott Current Lit. Terms 282 The determining feature of syllabic verse is the number of syllables in the line, not the stress nor the quantity.

1970 G. S. Fraser Metre, Rhyme & Free Verse iv. 50 Purely syllabic metrics seems..not suitable to the prosody of English as a natural language.

1789 C. Burney Gen. Hist. Music III. 389 Nothing now but syllabic and unisonous psalmody was authorised in the Church.

1834 K. H. Digby Mores Catholici V. iii. 75 That syllabic composition of song in Pindar's style.

1890 S. J. Duncan Social Departure xiii. 122 His English was careful, select, syllabic.

1899 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. VII. 64 ‘Scanning’, ‘staccato’, or ‘syllabic’ speech is one of the symptoms of [disseminate sclerosis].