relating to or denoting speech sounds that belong to different phonemes rather than being allophonic variants of the same phoneme
Compare phonetic (sense 2)
3.
of or relating to phonemics
Derived forms
phonemically (phoˈnemically) or phonematically (ˌphoneˈmatically)
adverb
phonematic in American English
(ˌfounəˈmætɪk)
adjective
phonemic
Word origin
[1935–40; ‹ Gk phōnēmat- (s. of pho᷇nēma) utterance + -ic]This word is first recorded in the period 1935–40. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: Arts and Crafts Movement, aeroembolism, blitz, fluorocarbon, hard core-ic is a suffix forming adjectives from other parts of speech, occurring originally inGreek and Latin loanwords (metallic; poetic; archaic; public) and, on this model, used as an adjective-forming suffix with the particular senses“having some characteristics of” (opposed to the simple attributive use of the basenoun) (balletic; sophomoric); “in the style of” (Byronic; Miltonic); “pertaining to a family of peoples or languages” (Finnic; Semitic; Turkic)