vowel
vowel
Definition
vowel (vo̵u′əl)
noun
- any voiced speech sound characterized by generalized friction of the air passing in a continuous stream through the pharynx and opened mouth but with no constriction narrow enough to produce local friction; the sound of the greatest prominence in most syllables
- a letter (as a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y) or a character or a symbol representing such a sound
Etymology: ME vowelle < MFr vouel < L vocalis (littera), vocal (letter), vowel < vox, voice
adjective
of a vowel or vowels
vowel
Usage Examples
Converse of subject
- precede: The formant structure of the nasal prototype has little effect on the nasal percept when it is preceded by a vowel.
Converse of object
- accent: To type accented vowels, use your normal method of doing this under Windows.
- stress: However, ' arming ' would not rhyme with ' calling ' , since the stressed vowels are different.
- contain: SOLUTION 41 The Written Number SOLUTION 1 What is the SMALLEST number which, when written, contains all five vowels?
- represent: Actually, " w " can represent either a vowel or a consonant in Welsh spelling.
- follow: The following vowels will be read in the first tone.
Adjective modifier
- unstressed: Rhiannon's spelling is largely accurate with a few slips, mostly with unstressed vowels.
- cardinal: There Peter acquired such arcane arts as the proper pronunciation of Daniel Jones's cardinal vowels.
- preceding: Lesson 2 e at the end of a word sometimes makes the preceding vowel ' hard ' .
- rounded: After the voiceless alveolar plosive comes a mid back rounded vowel, and after that a rather long uvular nasal.
- nasal: In Bengali, however, nasality is initially interpreted as an underlying nasal vowel.
- weak: To them we must add schwa ( right ), the weak vowel of a go, b a nan a.
Modifies a noun
- phoneme: Other lists focus on common vowel phonemes or a mixture of phonemes.
- formant: David Smith and Roy Patterson An analysis of Peterson and Barney's vowel formant data to investigate the evidence for scaling in human vowels.
- digraph: Magic e - an exercise to use a split vowel digraph to change the meaning of a word.
- diagraph: W2 to blend to read words containing the same vowel diagraphs and triagraphs.
- harmony: I haven't yet figured the vowel harmony thing.
- sound: I was taught a chant at the birth group we went to which uses the five vowel sounds: the Mother Sounds of language.
Preposition: in
Browse dictionary entries near vowel
- vow
- Vouvray
- voussoir
- voulu
- voudon
- vouchsafe
- voucher
- vouch
- votive Mass
- votive candle
- vowel point
- vowelize
- VoWiFi
- vox
- vox populi
- voyage
- voyageur
- voyeur
- VP
- VPI
