vowel

Etymology

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 and vocalis.

Pronunciation

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

  • Audio (London):

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  • Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -aʊəl, -aʊl

Noun

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.

Verb

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’ […] .

Anagrams

• wolve