vowel

Etymology

From Middle English vouel, from Old French vouel, a variant of voyeul (whence French voyelle), from Latin vōcālis (“voiced”), itself a semantic loan of Koine Greek φωνῆεν (phōnêen). Doublet of vocal.

noun

1. (phonetics) A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
   In Welsh, the w usually represents a vowel.
2. (orthography) A letter representing the sound of vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and y.
   Facetious is spelled with five vowels in alphabetical order.

verb

1. (linguistics) To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic).
   However it should be vowelled – perhaps ‘Almaqah’ – his name seems to be composed of ‘Il’, the general name of the paramount Semitic deity […], plus another element that is possibly from the Sabaic verb wqh, ‘to command’ […]. 2019, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Arabs, Yale University Press, page 52