vowelnoun [ C ]
uk/vaʊəl/us/vaʊəl/B1 a speech sound produced by humans when the breath flows out through the mouth without being blocked by the teeth, tongue, or lips:
A short vowel is a short sound as in the word "cup".
A long vowel is a long sound as in the word "shoe".
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consonant
B1 a letter that represents a sound produced in this way:
The vowels in English are a, e, i, o, and u.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Linguistics: phonology & phonetics
- alveolar
- approximant
- articulatory
- aspiration
- assimilation
- clear l
- clipped
- consonant
- inflection
- nasalization
- onomatopoeia
- palatal
- palato-alveolar
- pharyngeal
- phoneme
- pronounce
- silent letter
- velum
- voiced
- weak form
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Lettering & alphabets