Aren’t there three syllable in the word? It’s hard to explain, but what I say, and usually hear, sounds like this en-vel-lope. At least, it’s hard to decide which syllable the “l” goes with, since it’s sort of in both.
On-velope is probably the most common here.
I use both pronounciations with what letters go in, and en-velop for when something is surrounded.
Northern Californian born and bred.
When being posh it is an orn-ve-lope, otherwise an en-ve-lope. That’s from a UK southerner.
I agree with Cunctator, also Australian and say on-velope.
Almost always AHN-ve-lope. Army brat raised predominantly in North Carolina, California and Texas.
definitely on-velope
After practicing, I have to reverse my answer. For me, it’s “an ahnvelope” or “the ehnvelope.” But I’ll still say “the ahnvelope” sometimes, like if I’m thinking about the Oscars. So a quasi-reversal, semi-retraction, I guess.
En-velope for me and most of the people I know. I was born and live close to D.C.
Ahn-ve-lope. Born and in raised in Texas.
En-ve-lope sounds really strange to me for some reason. I do say en-VEL-op though.
Ahn-velope or 'nvelope (no vowel). Envelop the verb also doesn’t begin with a vowel.
Pacific Northwest - where sooner or later all vowels will become schwas
AHM-vuh-lope. The first syllable ends with an “m”, and what I transcribed as “v” is actually a bilabial fricative, like a Greek or Spanish “b”. In casual speech, though, you’d think I said “AHN-vuh-lope.” The related verb I pronounce “m-VEH-lup”, with the first syllable just an “m”, and the same note about the “v”. Born and raised in Houston.
Strangely, I use en-velope when referring to one that’s letter or card size. Anything bigger is ahn-velope. I have no idea where that distinction came from.
I say it both ways, but Ahn-ve-lope more frequently. I was born and raised here in West Virginia, but my parents are Australian.
My idiolect is odd, being somewhere in between Educated Australian and Received Standard English*. Generally I say /en-/, but /on-/ does not sound wrong to me, and I suspect I say that sometimes too.
Where the /on-/ comes, I’m not sure, but it may be French: the French pronunciation of “en” is not all that far from it – and of course, “envelope” came into English from French.
- Once, in Australia, after a person had heard me say just a few words, he asked me if I was from Leeds or Leicester. That was truly amazing, since I lived for 7 years as a child in Leeds, and my mother was born and grew up in Leicester. However, I myself can’t hear those specific influences in my speech.
Another Aussie, another on-velope.
Ahn-veh-lope, from the man who pronounces this thing as a “tar arn.”
Ahn-ve-lope - Georgia
AHN-vel-ope, currently living in Flint, MI.
I say both, pretty much interchangeably. The only exception is the verb, which I pronounce ehn-VEHL-up. I think that most people would pronounce the verb this way regardless of their pronunciatio of the noun, because the stress is on a different syllable.