Syllable

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Syllable \Syl"la*ble\, n. [OE. sillable, OF. sillabe, F.
     syllabe, L. syllaba, Gr. ? that which is held together,
     several letters taken together so as to form one sound, a
     syllable, fr. ? to take together; ? with + ? to take; cf.
     Skr. labh, rabh. Cf. {Lemma}, {Dilemma}.]
     1. 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 by such an abatement
        and renewal, or reenforcement, of the stress as to give
        the feeling of separate impulses. See Guide to
        Pronunciation, [sect]275.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. In writing and printing, a part of a word, separated from
        the rest, and capable of being pronounced by a single
        impulse of the voice. It may or may not correspond to a
        syllable in the spoken language.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Withouten vice [i. e. mistake] of syllable or
              letter.                               --Chaucer.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A small part of a sentence or discourse; anything concise
        or short; a particle.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Before any syllable of the law of God was written.
                                                    --Hooker.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Who dare speak
              One syllable against him?             --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Syllable \Syl"la*ble\, v. t.
     To pronounce the syllables of; to utter; to articulate.
     --Milton.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  syllable
       n : a unit of spoken language larger than a phoneme; "the word
           `pocket' has two syllables"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  141 Moby Thesaurus words for "syllable":
     Spenserian stanza, allophone, alveolar, antistrophe, antonym,
     apico-alveolar, apico-dental, articulation, aspiration,
     assimilation, atom, bilabial, bit, book, burden, cacuminal, canto,
     cerebral, check, chorus, consonant, continuant, couplet, crumb,
     dental, diphthong, dissimilation, distich, envoi, epenthetic vowel,
     epode, explosive, expression, free form, glide, glottal,
     glottalization, guttural, heptastich, hexastich, homograph,
     homonym, homophone, jot, labial, labialization, labiodental,
     labiovelar, laryngeal, lateral, lexeme, line, lingual,
     linguistic form, liquid, locution, logos, lota,
     manner of articulation, measure, metonym, minimum free form,
     modicum, modification, monophthong, monostich, monosyllable,
     morphophoneme, mute, nasal, occlusive, octastich, octave, octet,
     orthographize, ottava rima, ounce, outspell, palatal,
     parasitic vowel, peak, pentastich, pharyngeal, pharyngealization,
     phone, phoneme, plosive, polysyllable, prothetic vowel, quatrain,
     refrain, retroflex, rhyme royal, segmental phoneme, semivowel,
     septet, sestet, sextet, shred, sonant, sonority, speech sound,
     spell, spell backward, spell out, stanza, stave, stop, strain,
     strophe, surd, syllabic nucleus, syllabic peak, syllabize, synonym,
     tercet, term, terza rima, tetrastich, trace out, transition sound,
     triphthong, triplet, tristich, usage, utterance, velar, verbalism,
     verbum, verse, vocable, vocalic, vocoid, voice, voiced sound,
     voiceless sound, voicing, vowel, whit, word, write out