noun
vowel
VOW-uhl
noun
1
A speech sound made with an open vocal tract, without blocking the airflow — the core sound of a syllable.
"English has far more vowel sounds than it has vowel letters."
"She practiced pronouncing the long vowel in "beat" versus the short one in "bit.""
2
A letter representing a vowel sound — in English, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.
"The word "rhythm" is unusual because it has no standard vowel letters."
How to Use Vowel
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA, e, i, o, u (and sometimes y) — the open, unobstructed speech sounds and the letters that represent them.
Easily confused with
consonant
Common pairings
long vowel
short vowel
vowel sound
Word Forms
voweled past tense, vowelled past tense, vowels plural, vowels singular
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English has far more _____ sounds than it has vowel letters.
Etymology
From Old French vouel (compare modern French voyelle), from Latin vocalis, "voiced" — a doublet of vocal.