Is There An English word with no vowel or semivowel?

Answer 1

Unbelievable that some people STILL think the letter Y is NOT a vowel. In fact, it was originally used ONLY as a vowel (and in some languages, still is), and even now in English is more often the marker for a vowel-sound.

From your question I suspect you already know that Y and W are both "semi-vowels", which can act as either consonants or vowels depending on the context.

For those who don't know, we OFTEN use "w" for a vowel sound. How common is it? Well, I just used it in "how"! Is that common enough? What is confusing for us is that in ENGLISH words "w" as a vowel is ONLY used in combination with another vowel (something called a "diphthong") -- aw, ew, ow, as in "law", "pew", "cow". (Note that in all of these it makes the sound of a "u" --the letter from which "w" originated.) In WELSH words "w" can be used as a stand-alone vowel, as in "cwm" (pronounced "coom" -- note that "oo" is a u-type VOWEL sound!)

In other words, w's and y's are ruled out by this question
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That leaves us with words like this --
brr, psst, sh, grr, hmm, mm-hmm, tsk

Now some of your answer-ers insist that these are "not true words" even though they may be found in the dictionary. But why?? They may be UNUSUAL words, since they are used to express sounds we make, but why does that make them any less words than other onomatapoetic words like "buzz". Or how about "Oh!" or "ouch!"? In other words, just because a word imitates a sound we make does not make it any less a word!

One other word, already mentioned, is "nth". The argument that this would make "1st" or "2nd" into vowel-less words as well is a bit strange. "Nth" has a distinct meaning, uses ONLY letters (no symbols as abbreviations!), is pronounced as it appears... Looks like it ought to qualify.

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For an entertaining list of many consonant-only words (mostly made up) which have actually appeared in literature check out
The Dictionary of Consonant-Only Words by Craig Conly -http://www.oneletterwords.com/consonant/index.html.
(He lists 105 words under "T" alone! )

Answer 2

Yes....

"What English Words Have No Vowels?
15 Sep 2003


The answer to this question is subject to debate – so much debate, in fact, that I became sorry I ever asked the question. The answer that I originally posted was:

If we refer to words that lack "true" vowels (a, e, i, o, and u), the answer is that a number of them do; among them are: hymn, rhythm, myth, sylph, and syzygy (the alignment of three celestial objects). These words contain the so-called semivowel y and none of the true vowels.

The debate is further complicated by the view held by some people that certain uttered sounds that have distinct meaning (e.g., Shhh! Grrr! Psst! Zzzz!) are true words and therefore qualify as words without vowels (or, for that matter, semivowels). If we disqualify these words and words ending in y (together with acronyms such as RSVP and abbreviations such as P.S. and P.M. ), every English word contains at least one of the principal vowels.

After I posted the above answer, several people disagreed. Among the dissenters were those citing cwm, a Welsh word for "valley," which does have a listing in some English dictionaries. Therefore, I probably needed to clarify further to rule out words that are strictly dialect, especially Gaelic or Welsj words in which w may have a vowel sound. Someone else suggested that nth was a word with no vowels. But the n in nth stands for any number, so then we might as well argue that 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on are vowel-less words.

The whole matter became silly and trivial, and I am now asking people not to send me suggestions of obscure vowel-less words. Having endured several such suggestions, my final answer to the question is: Who cares?"

Answer 3

Semivowel

Answer 4

Many English words have the letter Y as their only vowel; three-letter words of this nature include cry, dry, fly, fry, gym, gyp, ply, pry, shy, sky, sly, spy, sty, thy, try, why, and wry. The letter Y is regarded grammatically as a vowel-consonant, but many people who speak English regard it as a consonant only. Longer such words also exist, such as crypt, cyst, dryly, flyby, glycyl, glyph, Gypsy, hymn, jynx, lymph, lynx, myrrh, myth, nymph, psych, pygmy, rhythm, shyly, slyly, spry, spryly, Styx, sync, synth, syzygy, tryst, wryly, and xylyl. The longest English word that does not contain any of the five traditional vowels is the 12-letter Twyndyllyngs. The longest commonly used English word not containing one of the 5 vowels is the seven-letter rhythms.

An example of a five-letter vowel-less English word: crwth -- A stringed instrument.

Also visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_without_vowel_letters for more words and infos.

Answer 5

Some say cwm (including me), some say hmm or psst (which I don't believe are words, even though they appear in some dictionaries), many try to convince everyone that y isn't ever a vowel, and many say there is no such word - good luck with this one!

Answer 6

This thing about "Y" being considered a vowel must be an Americanism.
I was never taught that.
What in the name of goodness is a "semi-vowel"?

Answer 7

maybe abbreviations like BBQ.

hey neighbor, Y can be considered a vowel

Answer 8

Look here:
http://www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com/articles/article/1029289/8966.htm

Answer 9

nth

Answer 10

mmmm...that good enough?really more a sound isn't it? but people do say mmmm when food is good... or other things.