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Wide :: Wide (superl.) Made, as a vowel, with a less tense, and more open and relaxed, condition of the mouth organs; -- opposed to primary as used by Mr. Bell, and to narrow as used by Mr. Sweet. The effect, as explained by Mr. Bell, is due to the relaxation or tension of the pharynx; as explained by Mr. Sweet and others, it is due to the action of the tongue. The wide of / (/ve) is / (/ll); of a (ate) is / (/nd), etc. See Guide to Pronunciation, / 13-15..

Open :: Open (a.) Uttered with a relatively wide opening of the articulating organs; -- said of vowels; as, the an far is open as compared with the a in say..

Monophthong :: Monophthong (n.) A combination of two written vowels pronounced as one; a digraph.

Phthongal :: Phthongal (a.) Formed into, or characterized by, voice; vocalized; -- said of all the vowels and the semivowels, also of the vocal or sonant consonants g, d, b, l, r, v, z, etc..

Ecthlipsis :: Ecthlipsis (n.) The elision of a final m, with the preceding vowel, before a word beginning with a vowel..

Aspirate :: Aspirate (v. t.) To pronounce with a breathing, an aspirate, or an h sound; as, we aspirate the words horse and house; to aspirate a vowel or a liquid consonant..

Aphesis :: Aphesis (n.) The loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word; -- the result of a phonetic process; as, squire for esquire..

Crasis :: Crasis (n.) A contraction of two vowels (as the final and initial vowels of united words) into one long vowel, or into a diphthong; synaeresis; as, cogo for coago..

Vowelism :: Vowelism (n.) The use of vowels.

Shut :: Shut (a.) Cut off sharply and abruptly by a following consonant in the same syllable, as the English short vowels, /, /, /, /, /, always are..

Subtonic :: Subtonic (a.) Applied to, or distinguishing, a speech element consisting of tone, or proper vocal sound, not pure as in the vowels, but dimmed and otherwise modified by some kind of obstruction in the oral or the nasal passage, and in some cases with a mixture of breath sound; -- a term introduced by Dr. James Rush in 1833. See Guide to Pronunciation, //155, 199-202..

Slender :: Slender (superl.) Uttered with a thin tone; -- the opposite of broad; as, the slender vowels long e and i..

Unvoweled :: Unvoweled (a.) Having no vowel sounds or signs.

Syllable :: Syllable (n.) An elementary sound, or a combination of elementary sounds, uttered together, or with a single effort or impulse of the voice, and constituting a word or a part of a word. In other terms, it is a vowel or a diphtong, either by itself or flanked by one or more consonants, the whole produced by a single impulse or utterance. One of the liquids, l, m, n, may fill the place of a vowel in a syllable. Adjoining syllables in a word or phrase need not to be marked off by a pause, but only

Epi- :: Epi- () A prefix, meaning upon, beside, among, on the outside, above, over. It becomes ep-before a vowel, as in epoch, and eph-before a Greek aspirate, as in ephemeral..

Vocalic :: Vocalic (a.) Of or pertaining to vowel sounds; consisting of the vowel sounds.

Com- :: Com- () A prefix from the Latin preposition cum, signifying with, together, in conjunction, very, etc. It is used in the form com- before b, m, p, and sometimes f, and by assimilation becomes col- before l, cor- before r, and con- before any consonant except b, h, l, m, p, r, and w. Before a vowel com- becomes co-; also before h, w, and sometimes before other consonants..

H :: H () the eighth letter of the English alphabet, is classed among the consonants, and is formed with the mouth organs in the same position as that of the succeeding vowel. It is used with certain consonants to form digraphs representing sounds which are not found in the alphabet, as sh, th, /, as in shall, thing, /ine (for zh see /274); also, to modify the sounds of some other letters, as when placed after c and p, with the former of which it represents a compound sound like that of tsh, as in ch

Stronghand :: Strong (superl.) Applied to forms in Anglo-Saxon, etc., which retain the old declensional endings. In the Teutonic languages the vowel stems have held the original endings most firmly, and are called strong; the stems in -n are called weak other constant stems conform, or are irregular..

Point :: Point (n.) To mark (as Hebrew) with vowel points.

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