FromMiddle Englishsyllable,sillable,syllabylle,sylabul, fromAnglo-Normansillable, fromOld Frenchsillebe, fromLatinsyllaba, fromAncient Greekσυλλαβή(sullabḗ), fromσυλλαμβάνω(sullambánō,“I gather together”), fromσυν-(sun-,“together”) +λαμβάνω(lambánō,“I take”).
syllable (pluralsyllables)
- (linguistics) A unit of human speech which often forms words corresponding to one opening of the mouth; a vowel and its surrounding consonants.
- Meronyms:onset,nucleus,coda,rime
2007,Don DeLillo,Underworld: A Novel, New York, N.Y.:Scribner Classics,→ISBN, page543:I wanted to look up velleity and quotidian and memorize the fuckers for all time, spell them, learn them, pronounce themsyllable bysyllable—vocalize, phonate, utter the sounds, say the words for all they're worth.
- The written representation of a given pronounced syllable.
- A small part of a sentence or discourse; anything concise or short; a particle.
1594,Richard Hooker, “The fourth Scripture proofe”, inJ[ohn] S[penser], editor,Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], 3rd edition, London: […] Will[iam] Stansby[for Matthew Lownes], published1611,→OCLC, book II,page60:Then let them caſt backe their eyes vnto former generations of men, and marke what was done in the prime of the world.Seth,Enoch,Noah,Sem,Abraham,Iob, and the reſt that liued before anyſyllable of the law of God was written, did they not ſinne as much as wee doe in euery action not commanded?
1613 (date written),William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC,[Act V, scene i],page227, column 1:Th'Archbyſhop
Is the Kings hand, and tongue, and who dare ſpeak
Oneſyllable againſt him?
1861, E. J. Guerin,Mountain Charley, page22:In none of my travels did I ever meet him or learn asyllable of his whereabouts.
unit of speech
- Afrikaans:lettergreep (af)
- Albanian:rrokje (sq) f
- Arabic:مَقْطَع لَفْظِيّ m(maqṭaʕ lafẓiyy),مَقْطَع m(maqṭaʕ)
- Armenian:վանկ (hy)(vank)
- Azerbaijani:heca (az)
- Bashkir:ижек(ijek)
- Belarusian:склад m(sklad)
- Bengali:অক্ষর (bn)(okkhor),পদাংশ (bn)(podaṅśo),সিল্যাব্ল(śillablo)
- 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(śabdāñś),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),wanda (id)
- Interlingua:syllaba
- Irish:siolla m
- Italian:sillaba (it) f
- Japanese:音節 (ja)(おんせつ, onsetsu)
- Kalmyk:ниилвр(niilvr)
- Kankanaey:gedwan di kali
- Kazakh:буын(buyn)
- Khmer:ព្យាង្គ (km)(pyiəng)
- Korean:음절(音節) (ko)(eumjeol)
- Kurdish:
- Northern Kurdish:kîte (ku) f,hece (ku) f
- Kyrgyz:муун (ky)(muun)
- Lao:ພະຍາງ(pha nyāng)
- Latin:syllaba f
- Latvian:zilbe (lv) 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 orf
- 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 class11/10
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syllable (third-person singular simple presentsyllables,present participlesyllabling,simple past and past participlesyllabled)
- (transitive, poetic) Toutter insyllables.
1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited byH[enry] Lawes,A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] forHvmphrey Robinson, […], published1637,→OCLC; reprinted asComus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.:Dodd, Mead & Company,1903,→OCLC,page 8:[A] thouſand fantaſies
Begin to throng into my memorie
Of calling ſhapes, and beckning ſhadows dire,
And ayrie tongues, thatſyllable mens names
On Sands, and Shoars, and deſert Wilderneſſes.
