Word sync is a technique for synchronizing digital audio signals between high-end professional devices such as CD players, audio I/O cards etc. It allows all the components in the signal path to process the data and remain synchronized with each other.

In simplest terms, one drummer beating out a pattern 10110 is great, but if two or three drummers beat that same 10110 pattern, but do not all start at exactly the same point in time, or keep exactly the same tempo as they are doing it, the result is a very muddy message for other devices which might need to listen to all three at once (e.g. a digital audio capture card on a computer or other multi-track recording device).

In language, a word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed).

A complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes (rock-s, red-ness, quick-ly, run-ning, un-expect-ed), or more than one root in a compound (black-board, rat-race). Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (a red rock), clauses (I threw a rock), and sentences (He threw a rock too but he missed).

The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of units of sound called phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of the English alphabet.

Sync or synch may refer to: