vowel
pronunciation
How to pronounce vowel in British English:
UK [ˈvaʊəl]
How to pronounce vowel in American English:
US [ˈvaʊəl]
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- Noun:
- a speech sound made with the vocal tract open
- a letter of the alphabet standing for a spoken vowel
Word Origin
- vowel
- vowel: [14] A vowel is etymologically a ‘vocal’ sound – that is, one made by vibrating the vocal chords. The word comes via Old French vouel from Latin vōcālis. This was short for littera vōcālis ‘vocal letter, letter that sounds’, sonus vōcālis ‘vocal sound’, etc. Vōcālis (source of English vocal) was derived from vōx ‘voice’ (source of English voice).=> voice
- vowel (n.)
- c. 1300, from Old French voieul (Modern French voyelle), from Latin vocalis, in littera vocalis, literally "vocal letter," from vox (genitive vocis) "voice" (see voice (n.)). Vowel shift in reference to the pronunciation change between Middle and Modern English is attested from 1909. The Hawaiian word hooiaioia, meaning "certified," has the most consecutive vowels of any word in current human speech; the English record-holder is queueing.
Antonym
Example
- 1. He describes the california vowel shift thus
- 2. Cantonese has 59 vowel sounds , twice as many as mandarin 's 23 .
- 3. In this context , countries starting with a vowel have a strategic advantage in creating pronounceable acronyms .
- 4. This makes vowel sounds and rhoticity all the more important in conveying accent in song .
- 5. In the sentence there is another example of a consonant being linked to a vowel .