syllable

syllable

English

Alternative forms

• syllab, syllabe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English syllable, sillable, syllabylle, sylabul, from Anglo-Norman sillable, from Old French sillebe, from Latin syllaba, from Ancient Greek συλλαβή (sullabḗ), from συλλαμβάνω (sullambánō, “I gather together”), from συν- (sun-, “together”) + λαμβάνω (lambánō, “I take”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /ˈsɪl.ə.bəl/, [ˈsɪl.ə.bɫ̩]

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sy‧lla‧ble

Noun

syllable (plural syllables)

1. (linguistics) A unit of human speech that is interpreted by the listener as a single sound, although syllables usually consist of one or more vowel sounds, either alone or combined with the sound of one or more consonants; a word consists of one or more syllables.

   Meronyms: onset, nucleus, coda, rime

   • 2007, Don DeLillo, Underworld: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner Classics, →ISBN, page 543:

     I wanted to look up velleity and quotidian and memorize the fuckers for all time, spell them, learn them, pronounce them syllable by syllable—vocalize, phonate, utter the sounds, say the words for all they're worth.

2. The written representation of a given pronounced syllable.
3. A small part of a sentence or discourse; anything concise or short; a particle.
   • 1622, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, 60:

     Then let them cast backe their eies unto former generations of men, and marke what was done in the prime of the World, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Sem, Abraham, Job, and the rest that lived before any syllable of the Law of God was written, did they not sinne as much as we doe in every action not commanded?

   • 1613, William Shakespeare; [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene i]:

     Is the King's hand and tongue; and The Archbishop
     Is the King's hand and tongue; and who dare speak
     One syllable against him?

Derived terms

• closed syllable
• dodecasyllable
• monosyllable
• open syllable
• polysyllable
• quadrisyllable
• quinquesyllable
• syllabary
• syllabatim
• syllabic
• syllabification
• syllabify
• trisyllable
• words of one syllable
• in words of one syllable

Related terms

• syllabus

Translations

unit of speech

Afrikaans: lettergreep (af) Albanian: rrokje (sq) f Arabic: مَقْطَع لَفْظِيّ‎ m (maqṭaʿ lafẓiyy), مَقْطَع‎ m (maqṭaʿ) Armenian: վանկ (hy) (vank) Azerbaijani: heca (az) Bashkir: ижек (ijek) Belarusian: склад m (sklad) Bengali: অক্ষর (bn) (ôkhôrô), পদাংশ (pôdaṅśô), সিল্যাব্ল (silẏablô) Breton: silabenn (br) f Bulgarian: сри́чка f (sríčka) Burmese: ဝဏ္ဏ (my) (wanna.) Catalan: síl·laba (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 音節／音节 (zh) (yīnjié) Crimean Tatar: eca Czech: slabika (cs) f Danish: stavelse Dutch: lettergreep (nl) f, syllabe (nl) f Esperanto: silabo Estonian: silp Faroese: stavilsi n Finnish: tavu (fi) French: syllabe (fr) f Galician: sílaba (gl) f Georgian: მარცვალი (marcvali) German: Silbe (de) f Greek: συλλαβή (el) f (syllaví) Ancient: συλλαβή f (sullabḗ) Gujarati: અક્ષર (akṣar) Hebrew: הֲבָרָה‎ (he) f (havará) Hindi: शब्दांश m (śabdānś), अक्षर (hi) m (akṣar) Hungarian: szótag (hu) (literally “word element”) Hunsrik: Silleb f Icelandic: atkvæði (is) n, samstafa f Indonesian: suku kata (id), silabel (id) Interlingua: syllaba Irish: siolla m Italian: sillaba (it) f Japanese: 音節 (おんせつ, onsetsu) Kalmyk: ниилвр (niilvr) Kazakh: буын (buyn) Khmer: ព្យាង្គ (km) (pyiəng) Korean: 음절(音節) (ko) (eumjeol) Kyrgyz: муун (ky) (muun) Lao: ພະຍາງ (pha nyāng) Latin: syllaba f Latvian: zilbe f Limburgish: lèttergreep (li) f Lithuanian: skiemuo (lt) m Luxembourgish: Silb (lb) f Macedonian: слог m (slog) Malay: suku kata (literally “a quarter of a word”) Maltese: sillaba f Maori: kūoro, haupū Mongolian: Cyrillic: үе (mn) (üje) Nogai: бувын (buvın) Norman: syllabe f Norwegian: Bokmål: stavelse (no) m, staving (no) m or f Nynorsk: staving f Pali: vaṇṇa m Pashto: هجا‎ f (hejā), سيلاب‎ m (silāb) Persian: هجا‎ (fa) (hejâ) Plautdietsch: Silb f Polish: sylaba (pl) f, zgłoska (pl) f Portuguese: sílaba (pt) f Romanian: silabă (ro) f Romansch: silba f Russian: слог (ru) m (slog), склад (ru) m (sklad) (dated) Sanskrit: अक्षर (sa) n (akṣara), वर्ण (sa) m (varṇa) Scottish Gaelic: lide f Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: сло̏г m Roman: slȍg (sh) m Slovak: slabika f Slovene: zlog (sl) m Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: złožka f Spanish: sílaba (es) f Swahili: silabi (sw) Swedish: stavelse (sv) c (1,2) Tagalog: pantig (tl) Tajik: ҳиҷо (hijo) Tatar: иҗек (tt) (icek) Thai: พยางค์ (th) (pá-yaang) Turkish: hece (tr) Turkmen: bogun (tk) Ukrainian: склад (uk) m (sklad) Urdu: ہِجا‎ m (hijā), شبدانش‎ m (śabdānś), اَکْشَر‎ m (akśar) Uyghur: بوغۇم‎ (boghum) Uzbek: boʻgʻin (uz), hijo (uz) Vietnamese: âm tiết (vi) (音節) Volapük: silab (vo) Welsh: sill f, sillaf (cy) f Yiddish: טראַף‎ m (traf) Zazaki: hece (diq) c Zulu: uhlamvu class 11/10

Verb

syllable (third-person singular simple present syllables, present participle syllabling, simple past and past participle syllabled)

1. (transitive, poetic) To utter in syllables.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], H[enry] Lawes, editor, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, OCLC 228715864; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, OCLC 1113942837:

     Begin to throng A thousand fantasies
     Begin to throng into my memory
     Of calling shapes, and beckning shadows dire,
     And airy tongues, that syllable mens names
     On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses.

     read onlin

Translations

to utter in syllables

Bulgarian: произнасям на срички (proiznasjam na srički) Greek: συλλαβίζω (el) (syllavízo)

Further reading

• syllable on Wikipedia.Wikipedia