Communities

The Great Outdoors

Photography & Video

Scientific Speculation

Electrical Engineering

Languages & Linguistics

Software Development

Community Proposals

tag:snake search within a tag

answers:0 unanswered questions

user:xxxx search by author id

score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score

"snake oil" exact phrase

votes:4 posts with 4+ votes

created:<1w created < 1 week ago

post_type:xxxx type of post

Notifications

Mark all as read See all your notifications »

Q&A Resources Meta

Review Suggested Edit

You can't approve or reject suggested edits because you haven't yet earned the Edit Posts ability.

Why is “timbre” pronounced “tamber”?

One thing that’s always bothered me about the musical term [timbre](en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre) is its pronunciation. The word begs to be pronounced “timber,” yet it’s widely pronounced “tamber” instead.
I understand the [etymology of the word](https://www.etymonline.com/word/timbre) and why it’s spelled the way it is. My question is — why doesn’t the pronunciation match?

One thing that’s always bothered me about the musical term [timbre](https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre) is its pronunciation. The word begs to be pronounced “timber,” yet it’s widely pronounced “tamber” instead.
I understand the [etymology of the word](https://www.etymonline.com/word/timbre) and why it’s spelled the way it is. My question is — why doesn’t the pronunciation match?

etymology English pronunciation

etymology English pronunciation