vowel

Noun
  1. A speech sound made with the vocal tract open (synset 107127258)
    is a type of: phone, sound, speech sound - (phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language
    subtypes:
    • ablaut - a vowel whose quality or length is changed to indicate linguistic distinctions (such as sing sang sung song)
    • diphthong - a vowel sound that starts near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves toward the position for another
    • schwa, shwa - a neutral middle vowel; occurs in unstressed syllables
    • stem vowel, thematic vowel - a vowel that ends a stem and precedes an inflection
    same as: vowel sound
  2. A letter of the alphabet standing for a spoken vowel (synset 107129420)
    is a type of: alphabetic character, letter, letter of the alphabet - the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech
    subtypes: vowel point - a mark placed below or near a consonant (as in Hebrew or Arabic) to indicate the spoken vowel

Other Searches