Etymology

semivowel

S1E1M3I1V4O1W4E1L1

Today it means: A sound in speech which has some qualities of a consonant and some qualities of a vowel. Full definition →

English vowel ← Middle English vowel ← Old French voue
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sēmi
  3. Latinsēmi-
  4. Englishsemi-
  5. Latinvōcālis
  6. Old Frenchvoyeul
  7. Old Frenchvoue
  8. Middle Englishvowel
  9. Englishvowel
  10. English todaysemivowel

From semi- + vowel.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.