syllable

English

Etymology

Middle English and Middle French sillabe, from Latin syllaba, from Ancient Greek συλλαβή (sullabē), from συλλαμβάνω (sullambanō, “I gather together”), from συν- (sun-, “together”) + λαμβάνω (lambanō, “I take”).

Pronunciation

• (RP, US) IPA: /ˈsɪləbɫ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

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.
2. The written representation of a given pronounced syllable.

Derived terms

• trisyllable
• quadrisyllable
• quinquesyllable

Related terms

• syllabary
• syllabic
• syllabification
• syllabify
• monosyllable
• polysyllable

Translations

One or more vowel sounds

Armenian: վանկ (hy) (vank) Catalan: síl·laba (ca) f. Chinese: 音節, 音节 Czech: slabika f. (1,2) Danish: stavelse (da) Dutch: lettergreep (nl) f. Esperanto: silabo (eo) Finnish: tavu (fi) French: syllabe (fr) f. Georgian: მარცვალი (ka) (marc’vali) German: Silbe (de) f. Greek: συλλαβή (el) f. Hungarian: szótag (1,2) Icelandic: atkvæði (is) n. Irish: siolla (ga) m. Italian: sillaba (it) f.

Japanese: 音節 Korean: 음절 (ko) Norwegian: staving (no) f. Polish: sylaba (pl) f. Portuguese: sílaba (pt) f. Romanian: silabă (ro) f. Russian: слог m. (slog) Scottish Gaelic: lide (gd) f. Serbian: slog (sr) m. Slovak: slabika (sk) f. Slovene: zlog (sl) m. Spanish: sílaba (es) f. Swedish: stavelse (sv) c. (1,2) Turkish: hece (tr) Volapük: silab (vo)

Verb

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

1. (transitive, poetic) To utter in syllables.

   Aery tongues that syllable men's names — Milton.