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, the term does not have wide currency and may be unknown even to phonologists who work on languages claimed to have chronemes.