| acute accent |
a diacritical mark (´), placed over a vowel to indicate length or high pitch, or to indicate primary stress of a syllable. (Cf. grave accent.) |
| an |
variant of the indefinite article "a," used before words starting with a vowel or vowel sound. [1/2 definitions] |
| aphesis |
the loss or dropping of an unstressed vowel at the beginning of a word, such as the "a" from "adobe". |
| assonance |
similarity in sounds, esp. vowel sounds. [2 definitions] |
| breve |
a diacritical mark ( ˇ ), placed over a vowel to indicate that the vowel is short. [1/2 definitions] |
| circumflex |
one of several diacritic marks, especially ( ˆ ), placed over a vowel to indicate a certain sound or quality. [1/3 definitions] |
| contraction |
a shortened form of a word or words, generally containing an apostrophe in the written form to represent missing letters. Contractions reflect the elimination of certain sounds as well as, in some cases, changes in sound and spelling, as when the vowel pronunciation changes in the case of "will not" being shortened to "won't." [1/3 definitions] |
| diphthong |
a complex sound produced by moving from one vowel sound to another within a single syllable. [1/2 definitions] |
| drawl |
to pronounce or speak slowly, esp. with vowel sounds greatly lengthened. [1/2 definitions] |
| grave accent |
a diacritical mark (à), placed over a vowel to indicate length or low pitch, or to indicate secondary stress of a syllable. (Cf. acute accent.) |
| Great Vowel Shift |
a series of shifts in English vowel sounds that took place from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century and changed the vowel system of Middle English into that of Modern English. |
| macron |
a diacritical mark ( - ), placed over a vowel to indicate that the vowel is long. |
| rhyme |
a word that ends with the same vowel sound or vowel and consonant combination as another word beginning with a different sound or cluster of sounds. [1/9 definitions] |
| schwa |
an indistinct vowel sound that occurs in most unstressed syllables in English, such as the first "a" in "away". [1/2 definitions] |
| semivowel |
a sound like a vowel sound that is indicated by a consonant, such as the sound of "w" or an initial "y," as in "yell". |
| syllable |
a segment of speech formed with a single uninterrupted pulse of air pressure, usu. consisting of a single vowel or diphthong with or without surrounding consonants. [1/3 definitions] |
| tilde |
a diacritical mark (ñ), placed over an "n" in Spanish to indicate a palatal nasal sound, or over a vowel in Portuguese to indicate nasalization. |
| umlaut |
a change in the sound of a vowel due to influence by a following vowel or semivowel, or the vowel so changed. [2/3 definitions] |
| vowel |
of or concerning a vowel or vowels. [1/3 definitions] |