c. 1300, from Old French voieul (Modern French voyelle), from Latin vocalis, in littera vocalis, literally "vocal letter," from vox (genitive vocis) "voice," from PIE root *wekw- "to speak." Vowel shift in reference to the pronunciation change between Middle and Modern English is attested from 1909. The English record-holder for most consecutive vowels in a word is queueing.
natural vowel; a vowel sound often found in weak, unstressed syllables (represented by an inverted e), 1895 in philology, from German Schwa, ultimately from Hebrew shewa "a neutral vowel quality," literally "emptiness."
colloquial modern alternative spelling of shit (n.), attested by c. 1740, preserving the original vowel length of the Old English verb.
"one who inserts the vowel points in (Hebrew) writing," 1723, from Latin punctum "a point" (from nasalized form of PIE root *peuk- "to prick").
"short horizontal line placed over a vowel to indicate length," 1827, from Latinized form of Greek makron, neuter of makros "long" (from PIE root *mak- "long, thin").
Anglo-Saxon alphabetic character representing a simple vowel corresponding to the short "a" in glad or the long one in dare, ultimately from Latin and used by scribes writing Old English because it represented roughly the same sound as Latin æ (see æ (1)). In Middle English the vowel tended to become -a- when short (glad, sad, from Old English glæd, sæd, etc.), -e- when long.
