language unit, linguistic unit - one of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analyzed

word - a unit of language that native speakers can identify; "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning"

penult, penultima, penultimate - the next to last syllable in a word

antepenult, antepenultimate - the 3rd syllable of a word counting back from the end

reduplication - the syllable added in a reduplicated word form

solfa syllable - one of the names for notes of a musical scale in solmization