Etymology

grapheme

gra·pheme·graph·eme
G2R1A1P3H4E1M3E1

Today it means: A fundamental unit of a writing system, corresponding to (for example) letters in the English alphabet or jamo in Korean hangul. Full definition →

English phonemeclip. ← Ancient Greek φώνημα (phṓnēma) ← Proto-Hellenic *pʰōnā́
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*gerbʰ-
  2. Proto-Hellenic*grə́pʰō
  3. Ancient Greekγράφω (gráphō)
  4. Proto-Indo-European*bʰeh₂-
  5. Proto-Hellenic*pʰōnā́
  6. Ancient Greekφωνή (phōnḗ)
  7. Ancient Greekφωνέω (phōnéō)
  8. Ancient Greekφώνημα (phṓnēma)
  9. Englishphonemeclip.
  10. English todaygrapheme

From Ancient Greek γράφω (gráphō, “write”) + English -eme. Doublet of -gram.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.