vowel

From Middle English vouel, from Old French vouel, a variant of voyeul (whence French voyelle), from Latin vōcālis (“voiced”), itself a semantic loan of Koine Greek φωνῆεν (phōnêen). Doublet of vocal.

• enPR: vouʹəl, IPA^(key): /ˈvaʊ.əl/
• (also) enPR: voul, IPA^(key): /vaʊl/

  • Audio (London, UK)

    (file)

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊəl, -aʊl

vowel (plural vowels)

1. (phonetics) A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.

   In Welsh, the w usually represents a vowel.

2. (orthography) A letter representing the sound of a vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y.

   Facetiously is spelled with all six vowels in alphabetical order.

• Apart from a and possibly o, all vowel letters may also represent consonants (semivowels) in English. For example, y in yes, i in Spaniard, u in persuade.

• (antonym(s) of “sound”): consonant
• (antonym(s) of “letter”): consonant

• (sound): sonorant, resonant

• vocalic
• consonant
• liquid

• → Yoruba: fáwẹ̀lì

• vocalization

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

vowel (third-person singular simple present vowels, present participle vowelling or (US) voweling, simple past and past participle vowelled or (US) voweled)

1. (linguistics) To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic).
   • 2019, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Arabs, Yale University Press, page 52:

     However it should be vowelled – perhaps ‘Almaqah’ – his name seems to be composed of ‘Il’, the general name of the paramount Semitic deity […] , plus another element that is possibly from the Sabaic verb wqh, ‘to command’ […] .

• vowelize
• vocalize

• wolve