In linguistics, a paroxytone (παροξύτονος, ) is a word with stress on the penultimate syllable, that is, the second-to-last syllable, such as the English word potáto.
In English, most words ending in -ic are paroxytones: músic, frántic, and phonétic but not rhétoric, aríthmetic (noun), and Árabic.
In Italian and Portuguese, most words are paroxytones. In Polish, almost all multisyllabic words are paroxytones except for certain verb conjugations and a few words of foreign origin.
In medieval Latin lyric poetry, a paroxytonic line or half-line is one in which the penultimate syllable is stressed, as in the second half of the verse "Estuans intrinsecus || ira vehementi."
Related concepts are proparoxytone (stress on the third-to-last syllable) and oxytone (stress on the last syllable).
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In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as increased loudness and vowel length, full articulation of the vowel, and changes in tone. The terms stress and accent are often used synonymously in that context but are sometimes distinguished.