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How to pronounce climb

Climb is pronounced KLIME, rhyming with time. It is one syllable with the vowel in my, and the B at the end is silent. The B stays silent in climber and climbing too.

Say it yourself
  • 1 syllable
  • Stress on KLIME
  • Sounds like clime
  • Checked in Cambridge and Oxford

climb

One syllable

verb and noun · to go up something, such as stairs, a hill or a tree

  1. KLIMEklaɪm (stressed)
  • US /klaɪm/KLIME Recorded voice
  • UK /klaɪm/KLIME Your device’s voice

IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. The recording is American English.

Climb, sound by sound

Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.

USUK American and British English/klaɪm/

  1. KLIMEstressed

    • /k/as in cat
    • /l/as in leg
    • /aɪ/as in my
    • /m/as in man

Say climb yourself

Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes climb, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.

Tip. One syllable that rhymes with time. Close your lips on the M; the B is silent.

Record yourself and play it next to our recording: the quickest way to hear a difference.

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climb

    Common climb pronunciation mistakes

    What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say KLIME.

    • NotKLIMB

      Saying the B. Stop on the M and let the B stay silent.

    • NotKLIM

      Using the short i of him. The vowel is long, as in time.

    • Notkuh-LIME

      Putting a vowel between K and L. Join them: KL, as in clean.

    Climb in a sentence

    Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.

    • It took us 3 hours to climb the mountain.

    • Prices continue to climb this year.

    • Can you climb over the fence?

    Why is the b in climb silent?

    The B was not always silent. The Old English verb was climban, and the B was a real sound. Over time English stopped saying B after M at the end of a word, but the spelling kept it.

    That is why climb belongs to a group: lamb, comb, thumb, numb, bomb and plumber all hide a silent B after M. Adding an ending does not bring it back, so climber is KLY-mer.

    The other trap is the vowel. The i here is long, the sound in my and time, not the short i in him.

    Words that sound like climb

    Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.

    More words with silent letters

    All 170 difficult words

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