In linguistics, a
chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. The noun
chroneme is derived from Greek χρόνος (chrónos,
time), and the suffixed
-eme, which is analogous to the
-eme in
phoneme or
morpheme. However, thr term does not have wide currency and may be unknown even to phonologists who work on languages claimed to have chronemes.