Accent

Accent, the marking of a certain syllable or syllables in a word with special intonation of the voice. In a word of more than three syllables, and in some of three syllables, there is more than one accent, while in words of two syllables only one accent is used. The modern tendency of pronunciation is to throw the accent as far back as possible. In music it signifies an emphasis occurring at regular intervals of time. Generally the accent occurs on the first note of the bar.