pentaphthong

plural pentaphthongs

1. rarehuman sciencesA sequence of five vowels pronounced as, or almost as, a single syllable.

   Try saying the Dutch word Leeuwen some time. At least a pentaphthong...

   1992 February 4, Graham Toal, “Vowel Raising Before Nasals”, in bit.listserv.words-l (Usenet)

   3 more examples

   Fifty-six diphthongal combinations may be made from the eight vowel elements, four of which, though, we find to be necessarily triphthongs, two tetraphthongs, and one a pentaphthong.

   1866, Caleb Bates Josselyn, Elements of Pronunciation […], page 53

   Someone once claimed that Pres. Coolidge ( a Vermonter) pronounced the vowel in "cow" as a pentaphthong.

   1993 December 23, Bob Simmonds, “Seamed phthongs”, in bit.listserv.words-l (Usenet)

   Phonetically, [j] is meaningless, it's the same as an [i]. So what we have here is a pentaphthong: ui@iu.

   2008 June 17, Ruud Harmsen, “British English "Joshua is"”, in sci.lang (Usenet)