Pronunciation · Famously mispronounced words

How to pronounce “awry”

uh-RY

2 syllables · stress on “RY”

uhRY

Britishəˈraɪ

Americanəˈraɪ

In short

“awry” is pronounced uh-RY: 2 syllables, with the stress on “RY”. The word is a-wry, not aw-ry: the prefix is a- and the root is “wry”. Readers split it at the wrong point and produce a completely different word. The version to avoid is AW-ree — treating aw- as in “awful”.

Say “awry” in 3 steps

1Split it as a + wry, not aw + ry.
2Start with an unstressed schwa: uh.
3Finish with the word “wry”, rhyming with “dry”. Stress falls there.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: AW-ree — treating aw- as in “awful”

The word is a-wry, not aw-ry: the prefix is a- and the root is “wry”. Readers split it at the wrong point and produce a completely different word.

Hear real people say it

Model audio is consistent; real speech is not. Hearing several actual speakers is what makes a word recognisable when someone says it at full speed.

Real speakers

2 human recordings

Actual people saying “awry”, not a synthetic voice. Real speech varies — that variation is what you need to recognise, and what a single model voice cannot show you.

Recordings from Wikimedia Commons by EncycloPetey and Commander Keane, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 / CC BY-SA 4.0. Full credits.

Practise it out loud

Reading about a sound does not change your mouth. Say it, hear it back, and fix one thing at a time.

Say it yourself

0/6 practised

Listen first, then record. You get feedback on the individual sounds, the stress and the rhythm — no account needed, and nothing is stored.

Three speakers per accent

Recordings are used only to generate this feedback and are not stored. Your accent is never penalised: IELTS scores intelligibility, and so do we.

The sounds inside this word

Each links to a full guide with mouth position, audio and drills. If a word keeps failing, the problem is usually one of these.

əa as in about (schwa)rr as in red aɪi as in my

More famously mispronounced words

Same pattern, same fix. Learning them as a group is far faster than one at a time.

epitomeih-PIT-uh-mee hyperbolehy-PUR-buh-lee colonelKUR-nul segueSEG-way cacheKASH facadefuh-SAHD

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce awry?

awry is pronounced uh-RY, written /əˈraɪ/ in IPA. Split it as a + wry, not aw + ry.

How many syllables are in awry?

two: uh-RY. The stress falls on “RY”.

What is the most common mistake with awry?

AW-ree — treating aw- as in “awful”. The word is a-wry, not aw-ry: the prefix is a- and the root is “wry”. Readers split it at the wrong point and produce a completely different word.

The full sound library

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