vowel, n. [F. voyelle, or an OF. form without y, L. vocalis (sc. littera), from vocalis sounding, from vox, vocis, a voice, sound. See Vocal.].

A vocal, or sometimes a whispered, sound modified by resonance in the oral passage, the peculiar resonance in each case giving to each several vowel its distinctive character or quality as a sound of speech; -- distinguished from a consonant in that the latter, whether made with or without vocality, derives its character in every case from some kind of obstructive action by the mouth organs. Also, a letter or character which represents such a sound. See Guide to Pronunciation, 1913 Webster]

" In the English language, the written vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y. The spoken vowels are much more numerous." [1913 Webster]

Close vowel. See under Close, a. -- Vowel point. See under Point, n.

vowel, a.

Of or pertaining to a vowel; vocal. [1913 Webster]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

vowel, n.
1 a speech-sound made with vibration of the vocal cords but without audible friction, more open than a consonant and capable of forming a syllable.
2 a letter or letters representing this, as a, e, i, o, u, aw, ah.

Idiom

vowel gradation = ABLAUT. vowel mutation = UMLAUT 2. vowel-point each of a set of marks indicating vowels in Hebrew etc.

Derivative

vowelled adj. (also in comb.). vowelless adj. vowelly adj.

Etymology

ME f. OF vouel, voiel f. L vocalis (littera) VOCAL (letter)

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THESAURUS

vowel

accented, allophone, alveolar, apical, apico-alveolar, apico-dental, articulated, articulation, aspiration, assimilated, assimilation, back, barytone, bilabial, broad, cacuminal, central, cerebral, check, checked, close, consonant, consonantal, continuant, dental, diphthong, dissimilated, dissimilation, dorsal, epenthetic vowel, explosive, flat, front, glide, glossal, glottal, glottalization, guttural, hard, heavy, high, intonated, labial, labialization, labiodental, labiovelar, laryngeal, lateral, lax, light, lingual, liquid, low, manner of articulation, mid, modification, monophthong, monophthongal, morphophoneme, mute, muted, narrow, nasal, nasalized, occlusive, open, oxytone, palatal, palatalized, parasitic vowel, peak, pharyngeal, pharyngealization, pharyngealized, phone, phoneme, phonemic, phonetic, phonic, pitch, pitched, plosive, posttonic, prothetic vowel, retroflex, rounded, segmental phoneme, semivowel, soft, sonant, sonority, speech sound, stop, stopped, stressed, strong, surd, syllabic, syllabic nucleus, syllabic peak, syllable, tense, thick, throaty, tonal, tonic, transition sound, triphthong, twangy, unaccented, unrounded, unstressed, velar, vocable, vocal, vocalic, vocoid, voice, voiced, voiced sound, voiceless, voiceless sound, voicing, vowellike, weak, wide

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ROGET THESAURUS

vowel

Letter

N letter, character, hieroglyphic, type, capitals, digraph, trigraph, ideogram, ideograph, majuscule, minuscule, majuscule, minuscule, alphabet, ABC, abecedary, christcross-row, consonant, vowel, diphthong, triphthong, mute, liquid, labial, dental, guttural, syllable, monosyllable, dissyllable, polysyllable, affix, suffix, spelling, orthograph, phonography, phonetic spelling, anagrammatism, metagrammatism, cipher, monogram, anagram, doubleacrostic, literal, alphabetical, abecedarian, syllabic, majuscular, minuscular, uncial.

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