GH

GH, gh is a digraph (a two-letter grapheme) used with various different values in a number of languages using the Latin alphabet, especially in English, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Italian, Romanian, Friulian and Corsican.

Use in English

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Use in English
Alphabetical word list
Retroalphabetical list
Common misspellings

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gh in English is a notorious digraph, representing as it usually does the sorry relic of a sound (IPA [χ]) no longer pronounced except in exclamations of disgust, úgh! yeùgh! (also found as Scottish ch in lóch, which in Ireland is indeed spelt lóugh; another Irish example is Drógheda) – or mutated into the sound of f and ph.

nîght and cóugh, for example, are pronounced *nîte and *cóff (the accents show pronunciation: see English spellings). It is pronounced f in: cóugh, tróugh, Góugh, enoúgh, toúgh, roúgh, sloúgh skin. More often, as in nîght, gh is silent, and quite a variety of vowel sounds and spellings can precede it: ŏught, sŏught, bŏught, cåught, nåughty, Våughan, Våughn, dôugh, èight, nèigh, wèigh, slèigh ride (= slây kill), wèight heavy (= wâit time), frèight, heîght, bòugh, throûgh, thôugh, Búrrôughs, sîght, nîght, nîgh, slòugh swamp and the English town Slòugh, both *slòu.

sough sound has various pronunciations, including *sóff, *soûkh and = sòw pig. [1]

ough is even a schwa (IPA [ə]) in British English bòrough, Scàrborough and thòrough, though in American these are bòrôugh, Scàrborôugh, and thòrôugh, rhyming with fúrrôw. BrE pronounces fürlôugh this way too.

In the Scottish word búrgh, gh may be considered a schwa, the word being pronounced much the same as the equivalent bòrough in England, *búrə.

In initial position the digraph merely represents a hard g, as in ghôst, ghoûl demon (=Goôle England), ghāstly, and also spaghéttì; and an h serves to distinguish dínghy boat (which can have hard g or silent g, but always the ng sound) from díngy dirty (soft g: *dínjy).

gh uniquely sounds like p in híccoúgh (a variant spelling of híccup). And sometimes Shêila turns out to be Shêilagh.

Example sentence

All examples of gh are silent in this sentence:

British English: Thôugh Î thínk ít's bêíng thŏught throûgh thòroughly.

American English: Thôugh Î thínk ít's bêíng thŏught/thóught throûgh thörôughly.

Pronounced: *Dhô Î thínk ít's bêíng thŏt/thót thrû thòrəly/thörôly/thörəly.