vocable

English edit

WOTD – 12 September 2012

From French vocable or Latin vocābulum, from Latin vocō (“I call”).

vocable (plural vocables)

(linguistics) A word or utterance, especially with reference to its form rather than its meaning.
- 1974, Anthony Burgess, The Clockwork Testament:
  Without words and almost with the seriousness of asylum nurses they at once set upon an unsavoury-looking matron who began to cry out Mediterranean vocables of distress.
- 1925, John Buchan, The House of the Four Winds:
  At first the man puzzled; then he smiled. He pronounced a string of uncouth vocables.
(music) A syllable or sound without specific meaning, used together with or in place of actual words in a song.
- a. 2010, Victoria Lindsay Levine, Native American Music, Encyclopaedia Britannica:
  Many Native American songs employ vocables, syllables that do not have referential meaning. These may be used to frame words or may be inserted among them; in some cases, they constitute the entire song text.