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Origin and history of vowel

vowel(n.)

mid-14c., vouel, "vowel sound, a vowel letter," c. 1300, from Anglo-French vouel, vowel, variants of Old French voieul (Modern French voyelle), from Latin vocalis, in littera vocalis "vocal letter." This is from vox (genitive vocis) "voice" (from PIE root *wekw- "to speak").

One of the open, continuous sounds uttered in human speech, a tone-sound, as opposed, relatively, to a consonant. In prosody, the central or open element of a syllable. Related: Vowellage; vowellish; vowelly.

Vowel shift in reference to the pronunciation change between Middle and Modern English is attested from 1909. The English record-holder for most consecutive vowels in a word is queueing.

also from mid-14c.

Entries linking to vowel

early 14c., "alphabetic element other than a vowel," from Latin consonantem (nominative consonans) "sounding together, agreeing," as a noun, "a consonant" (consonantem littera), present participle of consonare "to sound together, sound aloud," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + sonare "to sound, make a noise" (from PIE root *swen- "to sound").

Consonants were thought of as sounds that are produced only together with vowels. Related: Consonantal.

intervocalic(adj.)

"between vowels," 1881, from inter- "between" + Latin vocalis "a vowel" (see vowel) + -ic.

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to speak."

It might form all or part of: advocate; avocation; calliope; convocation; epic; equivocal; equivocation; evoke; invoke; provoke; revoke; univocal; vocabulary; vocal; vocation; vocative; vociferate; vociferous; voice; vouch; vox; vowel.

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit vakti "speaks, says," vacas- "word;" Avestan vac- "speak, say;" Greek eipon (aorist) "spoke, said," epos "word;" Latin vocare "to call," vox "voice, sound, utterance, language, word;" Old Prussian wackis "cry;" German er-wähnen "to mention."

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Trends of vowel

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

More to explore

early 14c., "alphabetic element other than a vowel," from Latin consonantem (nominative consonans) "sounding together, agreeing," as a noun, "a consonant" (consonantem littera), present participle of consonare "to sound together, sound aloud," from assimilated form of com "with,

For vowel shift, see below. An Old English word for it was undernmete (see undern), also morgenmete "morning meal."...The long/short vowel contrast in break/breakfast represents a common pattern where words from Old English have a long vowel...in their modern form but a short vowel as the first element of a compound: Christ/Christmas, holy/holiday, moon/Monday,...

writing," 1580s, from Latin elisionem (nominative elisio) "a striking out, a pressing out," in grammar, "the suppression of a vowel...Properly, in prosody, "the vanishing or metrical ignoring of a vowel at the end of a word before a vowel (or an h) at the...

Because of the difference in vowel length, it cannot be derived from ME-TL 'maguey.'...The sequence XIH also differs in vowel length from XIC-TLI 'navel,' which has been proposed as a component element....

The vowel has been influenced by that in the old plural form, which according to OED persisted into the 17c....Scottish slae preserves the older vowel. Sloe-eyed is attested from 1804; sloe gin is recorded by 1878....

1530, Tyndale's transliteration of Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH using vowel points of Adhonai "my lord" (see Yahweh)....The vowel substitution was originally made by the Masoretes as a direction to substitute Adhonai for "the ineffable name....

The Greeks also lacked the sound, so when they adopted the Phoenician letters they arbitrarily changed O's value to a vowel... The "connective" -o- is the usual connecting vowel in compounds taken or formed from Greek, where it often is the...vowel in the stem....to those derived from Latin (Latin compounds of which would have been formed with the L. connecting or reduced thematic vowel...

"a union of two vowels pronounced in one syllable," late 15c., diptonge, from Late Latin diphthongus, from Greek diphthongos "having two sounds," from di- "double" (from PIE root *dwo- "two") + phthongos "sound, voice," which is related to phthengesthai "to utter a sound, sound,

"noise, what is heard, sensation produced through the ear," late 13c., soun, from Old French son "sound, musical note, voice," from Latin sonus "sound, a noise," from PIE *swon-o-, from root *swen- "to sound." The unetymological -d was established c. 1350-1550 (see D). Sound-boar

c. 1200, "graphic symbol, alphabetic sign, written character conveying information about sound in speech," from Old French letre "character, letter; missive, note," in plural, "literature, writing, learning" (10c., Modern French lettre), from Latin littera (also litera) "letter o

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Dictionary entries near vowel

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