a pair of speech elements in a given language differing in only one respect and thus serving to identify minimum units such as phonemes, morphemes, etc. For example, tin and din constitute a minimal pair in English
minimal pair in American English
noun
Linguistics
a pair of words, as pin and bin, or bet and bed, differing only by one sound in the same position in each word, esp. when such apair is taken as evidence for the existence of a phonemic contrast between the two sounds
Word origin
[1940–45]This word is first recorded in the period 1940–45. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: airlift, redline, sealant, set-aside, whiteout
Examples of 'minimal pair' in a sentence
minimal pair
However, this difficulty may not apply to all minimal-pair novel words.
Paola eEscudero, Catherine T. Best, Christine eKitamura, Karen E. Mulak 2014, 'Magnitude of phonetic distinction predicts success at early word learning in nativeand non-native accents', Frontiers in Psychologyhttp://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01059/full. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)