How to pronounce tinnitus

Short answer: both tinnitus pronunciations are correct. Say TIN-ih-tus (/ˈtɪnɪtəs/), with the stress on the first syllable, or tih-NY-tus (/tɪˈnaɪtəs/), which rhymes with arthritis. For British English, Cambridge and Oxford Learner's Dictionaries give only TIN-ih-tus, and Collins lists it first. American dictionaries are split: Merriam-Webster and Oxford's American dictionary list TIN-uh-tus (/ˈtɪnətəs/) first, while Dictionary.com and American Heritage list tih-NY-tus first.

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Both speakers stress the first syllable. For tih-NY-tus, put the stress on NY, as in arthritis.

Is it TIN-ih-tus or tih-NY-tus?

Both. Every dictionary we checked lists the first-syllable version, but they don't agree on the order:

Medical websites disagree too. Mayo Clinic and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) put TIN-ih-tus first; the US National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and Cleveland Clinic put tih-NY-tus first. The American Tinnitus Association calls both correct and interchangeable: patients and laypeople typically say tih-NY-tus, clinicians and researchers TIN-uh-tus.

In Britain, TIN-ih-tus is far ahead. In a 2007 online poll of British speakers for the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, run by the phonetician John Wells and the publisher Pearson Longman (800 to 825 answers per question), 82% chose TIN-ih-tus and 18% tih-NY-tus. It wasn't a random sample, but tih-NY-tus did better with younger people: about 30% of the youngest group chose it, against about 12% of the oldest. In the US, the Hearing Loss Association of America calls tih-NY-tus the more common version, without citing data.

So which should you use? For the one version every dictionary lists, say TIN-ih-tus. In the US, tih-NY-tus is just as correct, so pick one and stick with it.

Why is tinnitus pronounced two ways?

The word is Latin: tinnītus, "a ringing, jingling, tinkling", from the verb tinnīre, "to ring", which dictionaries call imitative. Virgil and Ovid used it for ringing cymbals, helmets and swords, and Pliny the Elder, in the first century AD, for a ringing in the ears. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use in English to 1843; Dictionary.com, to 1685–95.

The two pronunciations come from the middle vowel:

• In Latin, the i was long, and Latin stresses a second-to-last syllable with a long vowel: [tɪnˈniːtʊs].
• The traditional English rule gives tih-NY-tus. English versions of Latin words traditionally keep the Latin stress, and a stressed i in that position becomes the "eye" sound, as in detritus (dih-TRY-tus), from Latin dētrītus. The phonetician John Wells, trained in classics, made this point about tinnitus in 2007.
• English spelling hides vowel length, so the stress of such words is learned one by one. TIN-ih-tus stresses the word like impetus (IM-puh-tus), which had no long vowel in Latin.
• The -itis look-alike. tih-NY-tus rhymes with arthritis; on the radio show A Way with Words (2020), a host suggested that non-specialists say it by analogy with such words. But -itis is a Greek suffix for inflammation, and tinnitus is the Latin stem tinnī- plus -tus.

How to say tinnitus step by step

1. Choose one version and stress only that syllable.
2. For TIN-ih-tus, say tin, like the metal, strongly, then two quick, weak syllables: "ih" (or "uh") and "tus". In American English the second t is often a quick tap, as in water.
3. For tih-NY-tus, start with a short, weak "tih", then stress "NY", with the vowel of night.
4. Keep the ending weak: "tus" with a short "uh", as in cactus.

If your language uses the Latin word too, watch the vowels: German Tinnitus is stressed like TIN-ih-tus but has an "ee"-like middle vowel and a rounder ending, and Spanish says tee-NEE-toos. No English dictionary above has "ee" in the middle.

Practice in a sentence

• My tinnitus gets louder when the room is quiet.
• My audiologist says TIN-ih-tus, and my neighbor says tih-NY-tus.
• Both TIN-ih-tus and tih-NY-tus are correct.

Then try similar words; tintinnabulation, the ringing of bells, shares the Latin root. American pronunciations, from the Cambridge Dictionary:

Stress and syllables trip people up in other words too: see how to pronounce hyperbole and mischievous. Niche is another word with two accepted pronunciations.

What is tinnitus?

Tinnitus is hearing a sound that has no outside source, so other people can't hear it. The NHS lists ringing, buzzing, hissing, humming, whooshing and throbbing. It's common: NIDCD says surveys estimate that 10 to 25% of adults have it, and Tinnitus UK says about one in seven people live with persistent tinnitus. The NHS says it's not usually serious, but advises seeing a GP if it's regular or constant, getting worse or bothering you.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — tinnitus; Cambridge Dictionary — tinnitus; Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — tinnitus and American English
• Dictionary.com — tinnitus and -itis; American Heritage — tinnitus; Collins — tinnitus
• Wiktionary — tinnitus, Tinnitus (German), detritus, impetus, tintinnabulation
• Lewis & Short — tinnītus; Wikipedia — Latin phonology and English pronunciation of Latin
• John Wells, UCL — Ring in the old ear, December 2007, and LPD 2007 poll results (archived copies)
• American Tinnitus Association — Will my tinnitus go away?; Hearing Loss Association of America — Tinnitus
• NIDCD — Tinnitus; ASHA — Tinnitus; Mayo Clinic — Tinnitus; Cleveland Clinic — Tinnitus
• NHS — Tinnitus; Tinnitus UK — What is tinnitus?; A Way with Words — The best pronunciation of "tinnitus", April 2020