Published June 18, 2026 | Version v2

Database of Spoken Multisyllabic English Words (SMEW)

Description

The database of Spoken Multisyllabic English Words (SMEW) contains 4940 words that vary in syllable length from one to five.  There are 1027 one-syllable words, 1086 two-syllable words, 982 three-syllable words, 884 four-syllable words, and 961 five-syllable words.  Individual words in each number of syllable group were generated from the English Lexicon Project website (http://elexicon.wustl.edu/) and recorded by a male native speaker of the American English.  In addition to the zip file containing all words as individual .wav files, there is an excel file with a listing of all words in each number of syllable group and their lexical characteristics.  A PRAAT script used to estimate word onset and offset within a .wav file and word duration is also included along with a poster that provides additional details about the project.   

Files

Elston et al. (2019) ASA poster.pdf

Files (304.0 MB)

Name Size
md5:a7c41a1aae9449cee533fe5adbcf5b5b
256.4 kB Preview Download
md5:2eca63f7c0bb91e6b6da42fa3cabc335
497.3 kB Download
md5:f4ede4b45a41bcc92f14b0d6fdc4af57
303.2 MB Preview Download
md5:cbb7c132e69448e5777746fb4a14b590
3.2 kB Download

Additional details

References

  • Elston, C., Prendergast, B., Thomas, M., Partain, M., Butler, E., Sheft, S., & Shafiro, V. (2019). A database of English multisyllabic words for speech perception research. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 145(3_Supplement), 1909