vowel

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noun vow·el \ ˈvau̇(-ə)l \

Definition of vowel

1 :one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction; broadly :the one most prominent sound in a syllable

2 :a letter or other symbol representing a vowel —usually used in English of a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y

See vowel defined for English-language learners

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Recent Examples of vowel from the Web

Aurelio Monteagudo has all five vowels in his first name.

— steve rushin, SI.com, "How the toys and totems of the 1970s shaped a lifelong love of sports," 21 June 2017
When trained on recordings of 90 people making four vowel sounds, old-school computers performed the task with relative ease: A computer simulating a 16-neuron network was right 92% of the time.

— matthew hutson, Science | AAAS, "Computer chip mimics human brain, with light beams for neurons," 20 June 2017
The researchers then tested their optical neural network on a real-world task: recognizing vowel sounds.

— matthew hutson, Science | AAAS, "Computer chip mimics human brain, with light beams for neurons," 20 June 2017
The slim, stylish former real estate executive addressed the crowd in a soft but confident tenor, revealing the New York influences around his vowels.

— catherine lucey, The Seattle Times, "Jared Kushner speaks in public. And Washington takes notice.," 19 June 2017
Training a traditional neural network on the same data set produced a vowel-recognition accuracy of just over 90 percent.

— john timmer, Ars Technica, "Light-based neural network does simple speech recognition," 13 June 2017
To show that their network works, the authors had 90 people record one of four different vocal sounds and then used half of this set to train a neural network to recognize vowels.

— john timmer, Ars Technica, "Light-based neural network does simple speech recognition," 13 June 2017
The Hawaiian language only has 12 letters (five vowels and eight consonants).

— vincent crampton, OrlandoSentinel.com, "The A to Zs (but mostly Ks) of Volcano Bay," 30 May 2017
Dorsey and his co-founders eventually added vowels to the service, forming Twitter.

— michael s. rosenwald, Washington Post, "Before Twitter and Facebook, there was Morse code: Remembering social media’s true inventor," 24 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'vowel.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of vowel

Middle English, from Anglo-French vowele, from Latin vocalis — more at vocalic

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First Known Use: 14th century

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Other Grammar and Linguistics Terms

ablaut, allusion, anacoluthon, diacritic, gerund, idiom, infinitive, metaphor, semiotics, simile

VOWEL Defined for English Language Learners

vowel

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noun

Definition of vowel for English Language Learners

: a speech sound made with your mouth open and your tongue in the middle of your mouth not touching your teeth, lips, etc.
: a letter (such as a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y in English) that represents a vowel

VOWEL Defined for Kids

vowel

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noun vow·el \ ˈvau̇-əl \

Definition of vowel for Students

1 :a speech sound (as \ə\, \ā\, or \ȯ\) produced without obstruction in the mouth

2 :a letter (as a, e, i, o, u) representing a vowel

Learn More about vowel

See words that rhyme with vowel Spanish Central: Translation of vowel Nglish: Translation of vowel for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of vowel for Arabic speakers Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about vowel

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vowel

Definition of vowel

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Origin and Etymology of vowel

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VOWEL Defined for English Language Learners

vowel

Definition of vowel for English Language Learners

VOWEL Defined for Kids

vowel

Definition of vowel for Students

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