vowel

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English vouel, also vowelle,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French vouel, also voiel and voieul,^[5][6][2] from Latin vōcālis (“sounding, vocal”).^[5][3][7] Most dictionaries take the Latin word as short for littera vōcālis (“vocal letter”);^{[2][3][7][8][9]} Ayto adds sonus vōcālis (“vocal sound”),^[10] and Hoad and the OED derive the masculine Old French form from the masculine or neuter accusative, as in "vocal sound" or "vocal sign".^[6][5] The later Old French voielle, now voyelle, is feminine, after the Latin noun.^[5][6] The Latin adjective, the source of vocal, is formed from vōx (“voice”), the source of voice,^[10][2][7] from Proto-Indo-European *wekw- (“to speak”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A speech sound, or a letter standing for one: about 1308, in a satire on the people of Kildare.^[5][7] Etymonline dates it to about 1300 and the mid-14th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its meaning, a sound or letter that can be uttered by itself, as Johnson (1755) put it.^[11][5] It was also briefly used for a word in general (1578–1648) and in transferred and figurative senses from 1576.^[5] The verb, formed from the noun, meant singing the vowels in music (1597), turning a sound into a vowel (1611, in Cotgrave) and supplying a text with vowels or vowel points (1681).^[5] In 18th-century slang, from Steele's Tatler (1709), to vowel a creditor was to pay him with an IOU, a note made of vowels.^[5][12][13] Linguists have spoken of the English vowel shift between Middle and Modern English since 1909.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1308 – a vowel sound, or a letter for one.^[5][7]
• 1576 – transferred and figurative uses.^[5]
• 1578 – a word (obsolete by 1648).^[5]
• 1597 – verb, to sing the vowels.^[5]
• 1611 – verb, to turn into a vowel.^[5]
• 1681 – verb, to supply with vowels or vowel points.^[5]
• 1709 – slang verb, to pay a creditor with an IOU (obsolete by 1796).^[5][12]
• 1909 – vowel shift, of the change from Middle to Modern English.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A speech sound made with the breath passing freely through the mouth, without any closing or narrowing that causes friction, and forming the core of a syllable.^[14][13][15]
2. A letter standing for such a sound, as a, e, i, o or u.^[14][13][7]

Verb

1. To supply a text with vowels or vowel points.^[13][5]
2. (obsolete slang, 1709–1796) To pay a creditor with an IOU.^[13][5]

Word family

• vowelless
• vowellike
• semivowel
• vowelize
• cardinal vowel
• vowel harmony
• vowel mutation

Related words

• intervocalic
• prevocalic
• postvocalic
• vocalic
• vocal
• voice
• vocable

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press