Meanings
- human sciencesA phonemic merger of /ɔɹ/ and /oɹ/, so that pairs of words such as horse and hoarse, war and wore, for and four, etc become homophones.
1 more example
Among the changes, which took place in Dublin English in the 1990s (Hickey 1999), are the following four which are also found in general forms of American English: (a) use of retroflex /r/, in fork [fo:ɻk]; (b) use of an intervocalic alveolar tap, for example in water [wɑɾɚ]; (c) the horse/hoarse‐merger and (d) the which/witch‐merger.
2017 August 9, Raymond Hickey, “Irish English in the Anglophone world”, in World Englishes, volume 36, number 2
Cite this entry
horse-hoarse merger. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horse-hoarse%20merger
“horse-hoarse merger.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horse-hoarse%20merger. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “horse-hoarse merger,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horse-hoarse%20merger.
Source: horse-hoarse merger on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.