vowel
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed into Middle English from Old French vouel (French voyelle), from Latin vōcālis (“voiced”), a semantic loan of Koine Greek φωνῆεν (phōnêen). Doublet of vocal.
PronunciationEdit
- enPR: vouʹəl, IPA(key): /ˈvaʊ.əl/
- (also) enPR: voul, IPA(key): /vaʊl/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -aʊəl, -aʊl
NounEdit
vowel (plural vowels)
- (phonetics) A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
- (orthography) A letter representing the sound of vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.
AntonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
Terms derived from vowel
Related termsEdit
See alsoEdit
Placing of an element:
- prevocalic (occurring before a vowel)
- intervocalic (occurring between vowels)
- postvocalic (occurring after a vowel)
Types of vowels (phonetics):
- front, central, back
- rounded, unrounded
- close, near-close, close-mid, mid, open-mid, near-open, open
TranslationsEdit
sound
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letter
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
VerbEdit
vowel (third-person singular simple present vowels, present participle vowelling or (US) voweling, simple past and past participle vowelled or (US) voweled)
- (linguistics) To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic)