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HOW TO PRONOUNCE

vowel

/ˈvaʊəl/

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American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
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What does vowel mean?

noun

  1. A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
  2. A letter or diacritic representing the sound of a vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y (sometimes), and w (rarely).

verb

  1. To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic).

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/ˈvaʊəl/

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

There is no single vowel which men's mouths can pronounce with such difference of effect.
James Russell LowellAbraham LincolnProject Gutenberg ebook #906
Say thou but Ay, And that bare vowel I shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
William ShakespeareThe Complete Works of William ShakespeareProject Gutenberg ebook #100
More book examples (3)
Naumann’s pronunciation of the vowel seemed to stretch the word satirically.
George EliotMiddlemarchProject Gutenberg ebook #145
The vowel sound is so intimately linked with the consonant--the con-sonant, implying this intimate relation in its very name--that it seemed extremely difficult to give it individual recognition.
Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington WilliamsA History of Science — Volume 1Project Gutenberg ebook #1705
The radical of the first and of third person is in the Chayma u and teu.* (* We must not wonder at those roots which reduce themselves to a single vowel.
Alexander von Humboldt; Aimé BonplandPersonal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1Translated by Thomasina RossProject Gutenberg ebook #6322