/ˈvaʊ.əl/, /vaʊl/
OriginFrom Middle English vowel, 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.
- 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.”
- A letter or diacritic representing the sound of a vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, w (rarely), y (sometimes).
“Facetiously is spelled with all six vowels in alphabetical order.”
- To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic).
“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 ve”
Formsvowels(plural) · vowels(present, singular, third-person) · voweling(US, participle, present) · vowelling(UK, participle, present) · voweled(US, participle, past) · voweled(US, past) · vowelled(UK, participle, past) · vowelled(UK, past)