SEMIVOWEL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does semivowel mean? 

• SEMIVOWEL (noun)
  The noun SEMIVOWEL has 1 sense:

1. a vowellike sound that serves as a consonant

  Familiarity information: SEMIVOWEL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SEMIVOWEL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A vowellike sound that serves as a consonant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

glide; semivowel

Hypernyms ("semivowel" is a kind of...):

phone; sound; speech sound ((phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "semivowel"):

palatal (a semivowel produced with the tongue near the palate (like the initial sound in the English word 'yeast'))