phonetic [E19th] Phonetic is from modern Latin phoneticus, from Greek phōnētikos, from phōnein ‘speak’. Other words from the same source are gramophone [L19th], and its reversed form phonograph [M19th] originally a phonetic symbol, which explains the use of the combining form–gram used for ‘something written’; and saxophone [M19th] an instrument for making pleasant sounds invented by the Belgian Adolphe Sax in 1840.