My Burning Question: How do you pronounce "Peridot"?

I have a burning question that I didn't know I had until last night: How do you pronounce "Peridot," as in the green gemstone called peridot?

Peer-i-doh (soft 'i' like 'it'). It's my daughter's & my step-daughter's birth stone.

Carla Burke wrote:Peer-i-doh (soft 'i' like 'it'). It's my daughter's & my step-daughter's birth stone.

Is the "peer" pronounced like "pier" and "peer" (like to look)?

I tried to show that short-vowel, soft "i" with the "ih." I think that's the same?

Do you pronounce doh the same as doe and dough? Or differently?

Spelling out sounds is surprisingly hard!

I have tried twice to vote Pear-ih-dot though it has not happened.

I am not sure that is quite correct as it is more like Pear-e-dot.

I took geology in college ans that is what I remember.

Of course regions might have something to do with pronunciation.

Nicole Alderman wrote:Is the "peer" pronounced like "pier" and "peer" (like to look)?

Yup! But softer - maybe halfway between pare and peer? Does that even make sense?

Nicole Alderman wrote:I tried to show that short-vowel, soft "i" with the "ih." I think that's the same?
Yup!

Nicole Alderman wrote:Do you pronounce doh the same as doe and dough?

YUP!

Nicole Alderman wrote:Spelling out sounds is surprisingly hard!

Often!
My pronunciation is from every jeweler & gemologist I've dealt with, since my daughter was born. That's why I say it that way. However, is seems either way it's linguisticly correct

https://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/peridot-15243
https://youglish.com/pronounce/peridot/english/us

Carla Burke wrote:My pronunciation is from every jeweler & gemologist I've dealt with, since my daughter was born. That's why I say it that way. However, is seems either way it's linguisticly correct

https://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/peridot-15243
https://youglish.com/pronounce/peridot/english/us

I had never heard it with a "dot" at the end until I was watching this video last night:



It really sent me spinning. For a second, I thought that I'd somehow been pronouncing it wrong all these years. But, if I were making up my own pronunciation, I definitely wouldn't have used a "silent-t" at the end. I then remembered that I have most certainly heard it spoken multiple times in my life, and had never heard it with a "t." But, then--in my sleep deprivation--I thought maybe I'd gone crazy and was making up memories. To verify my sanity, I searched youtube for Home Shopping Network/QVC episodes talking about peridot, and was relieved to hear it without the "t." (I used to watch the QVC gemstone hour when I came home from school as a sort of "semi-interesting thing to watch that was easy to turn off, so I could relax for  bit after a long day of school, but also turn it off when I was done".)

I still am very flummoxed that no dictionary I have looked it up in has the "pare-ih-doe" pronunciation. I even got my mom's college dictionary from the 70's, and it has it as "pare-ih-dot." It seems like a lot of people say it without a "T," and that's the gemstone industry's pronunciation. Considering that, you'd think a dictionary would list it as a possible pronunciation.

My wedding ring has a peridot on it. We just got the stone replaced, and the jeweler never once said "pare-ih-dot." When we bought the wedding ring, we talked about the stone a lot. Never heard it as "pare-ih-dot." My husband had never heard it with a "dot," either. It's so weird that it's the dictionary pronunciation, but I had never heard it pronounced that way in the 40 years I've been alive. Crazy!

My first engagement ring was peridot too, come to think of it. It was a faceted oval in 14kt gold, with a diamond chip on either side. I gave it to my oldest daughter,I think for her 16th birthday? Then my 2nd daughter came along, and it's her birthstone. The color is beautiful.

so I would say "per - ih- dot" (per with a short e, like the e in "very").
Only because this is a word I don't think I've ever heard spoken out loud in English!! (the curse of the precocious reader child)
But certainly it must come from French, which changes things.

In US English both ways are accepted. On the Merriam Webster dictionary site you can hear both variations https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peridot

Nicole Alderman wrote:
I had never heard it with a "dot" at the end until I was watching this video last night:,.....
It really sent me spinning. !

My first thought here was that I'm hearing a lot of mispronunciation in YT videos lately as they're using AI voiceovers (not sure this is the case with your video, i didn't click it). Just like AI translation, AI voice makes lots of mistakes. I occasionally hear some that are so bad I need to go back and see -- "did they really say that??". Yup, they did. So don't worry too much about what you hear on YT unless you're a gazillion percent sure it's a real person talking, and even then maybe keep the salt shaker handy...

Cool!

Is there a difference in pronunciation between pair, pear and père? It's hard to know what comes naturally once I start thinking about it, but I think I say pear and pair the same but père is a little softer and that's how I'd say it in peridot. And I pronounce the T, though I wasn't sure enough of it to avoid looking it up -- I'd try to change myself if I was convinced it was "wrong".

Mr. G....e says that the original word came from Arabic or Greek, but plenty of sites attribute the word to the French.

Those following the French pronunciation would likely follow Carla's example.

However, anyone being taught geology or gems further from native French speakers, would likely pronounce the ending like "dot".

The sources I was reading synopsis from implied there was more than one way to pronounce it. I suspect "regional dialect" wins here!

Tereza Okava wrote:so I would say "per - ih- dot" (per with a short e, like the e in "very").
Only because this is a word I don't think I've ever heard spoken out loud in English!! (the curse of the precocious reader child)
But certainly it must come from French, which changes things.

I think that's the same as "pear-ih-dot" to me. I pronounce "pear" (like the fruit) with the same short e as I use in "very."

Trying to write down the short e sound followed by a R is hard! Usually, if we put an "a" after an "e," we get the long e sound--the same as when we say "peer" (peer as in an equal or "to look"). But, for some reason, in my dialect, we have:

Pear (the fruit)
Pare (to cut/trim)
Pair (a group of two)

Those all have the short e sound, though they look like they should have either a long a or long e sound.

I'm gaining new respect for how difficult it is for people to make those maps of how people pronounce things around the world!

---

This thread has gotten really interesting! When I started it, I was trying to find out if people ended the word with a "doe"/"doh" or a "dot." On the way, though, we've seen a lot of different ways for how people spell and read various sounds! It's facinating!

Merriam Webster has it listed both with and without a hard T on the end. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peridot

I had never heard that final T pronounced before this thread.  How odd.

Well, darnit, I learn the darndest things here!  

Never heard of it before...thought it might be some new kind of landscape or gardening idea, like an herb spiral or swale..."We just installed three peridots in our citrus orchard..."

Nope, but it's a birthstone!

(I already knew those darn French throw in letters just for looks, that you don't bother pronouncing...)

My dad was a rock hound and he said pear ih dote.
Burned into my brain right or wrong.

Paul Anguiano wrote:Merriam Webster has it listed both with and without a hard T on the end. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peridot

I had never heard that final T pronounced before this thread.  How odd.

I suspect that pronouncing the final T is just Americanization. As Merriam-Webster notes, it is a French word minus the accent. It wouldn't be surprising if that was derived from Greek, as that is also in the Indo-European language family.

Nicole Alderman wrote:I have a burning question that I didn't know I had until last night: How do you pronounce "Peridot," as in the green gemstone called peridot?

[applepoll]

There is an alphabet to accurately transpose any sounds into symbols in phonetics. It was invented long before people had a way to record human voice and it transposes in agreed upon international symbols any word, in any language. I learned English by correspondence and we didn't have a way to hear the language, so I had to learn the phonetic alphabet. The IPA (International phonetic Alphabet)) rendition is:
/pɛrɪˌdɒt/ or /ˈperɪˌdɑt/
In "English speaker's rendition", however, it is closer to:
'peh·ruh-'daat
Because it comes from and old French word, some folks believe that the final "t" is silent and the English speaker's rendition would be 'peh·ruh-'doe
The apostrophe is an indication of a stressed syllable, to be pronounced more strongly.

It is Pear -ih - doe.  (short, soft "i" in the 2nd syllable)

From the French.  Learned this 40 years ago in high school French, then became a GIA certified jeweler in the early 1990's.

There is also the alternate name, olivine. That's what we call it in Hawaii. It's just about the only gemstone that can be found in Hawaii. It comes embedded in basalt from the volcanic eruptions. There is one beach that has so much the sand is green and called "greensand beach." There is so much even the coral offshore has a green tint.

I pronounce it Per-i-do (silent T) with the accent on per and the e short.

Anne Miller, you're correct. It does have to do with regions.

It is originally a French word and they pronounce it peri doe. You can google a french sound translation.

However, if you google an English dictionary version they make a hard t sound at the end, so you hear peri dot

(I already knew those darn French throw in letters just for looks, that you don't bother pronouncing...)

Actually an error of understanding language difference.  It is not just for looks it is actually pronounced.   Some languages like we are using here the important letters are consonants,  So speaking the word it almost does not matter which vowel one uses.  I learned from years of trying to hear and speak French that the vowel is what caries the meaning.  A consonant without a fallowing vowel accents the preceding vowel.  Therefore the the o is pronounced as in hot but in French the T does not close off the air flow but in English it does.

Last vote in apple poll was on November 30, 2025

I was a goldsmith. It is pronounced “pair eh doh” though depending on what country someone is from the stress can be on either the first or last syllables. Or you can call it chrysolite or to further mess with people: (Mg,Fe)2SiO4
Hope this was fun!

Racha Garden wrote:It is pronounced “pair eh doh”...

Based on what I'm seeing above, it looks like it is pronounced a few different ways.

Original (French) "pear-eh-doe" or
American (English) "pear-eh-dot"

From Old French early 13c. and Medieval Latin peridotus.