Definition of received pronunciation in English:

noun

• [mass noun] The standard form of British English pronunciation, based on educated speech in southern England, widely accepted as a standard elsewhere.

  Example sentences

  • ‘Someone commented on my yokel version, which for ages I have thought was the received pronunciation of the word.’
  • ‘The Doctor is a scientist and an intellectual, and a lot of people seem to think you can only be those things if you speak with received pronunciation which, of course, is rubbish.’
  • ‘Gone is the Doctor's received pronunciation and upper class background.’
  • ‘We should remember that Gladstone had a strong Merseyside accent, and that received pronunciation is largely an artefact of the broadcast era.’
  • ‘Clare Francis speaks with the sort of received pronunciation you might expect from a former yachtswoman brought up in the Home Counties.’
  • ‘Standard English at that time was British English with received pronunciation.’
  • ‘All were more or less informed by the desire to distance Shakespeare in performance from the perceived colonial baggage of received pronunciation, and stage English.’
  • ‘It's an observation which could have come straight from the mouth of a terrorist, but because it's uttered in the received pronunciation of Mr Loyn's BBC tones, no one even noticed it until I picked him up on it.’
  • ‘She was still in the midst of the old world of received pronunciation and velvet smoking jackets.’
  • ‘But Himalaya is the received pronunciation, certainly in the UK, so I didn't want to sound as though I was being too clever.’
  • ‘She speaks in breathless, giggly received pronunciation.’
  • ‘You have to relish the language but you don't force it into received pronunciation because that would kill it.’