vowel
A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
Other meanings
A letter or diacritic representing the sound of a vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y (sometimes), and w (rarely).
Related words
- back vowel
- cardinal vowel
- dark vowel
- disemvowel
- echo vowel
- front vowel
- full vowel
- gliding vowel
- half-long vowel
- happy vowel
- inherent vowel
- lax vowel
Word history
From Latin "vōcālis" (voiced).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “vowel” on Wiktionary, by its contributors, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.