schwa

From German Schwa, from Hebrew שווא / שְׁוָא (sh'va, š’vā, “(mark mostly indicating absence of a vowel sound)”), borrowed from Classical Syriac ܫ̈ܘܰܝܳܐ (š'wayyā, literally “even, equal”), in Syriac a term for a sign consisting of two vertical dots used to separate parts of a sentence.[1] Doublet of shva.

• shwa

• enPR: shwä, IPA^(key): /ʃwɑ/

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• (humorous) IPA^(key): /ʃwə/
• Rhymes: -ɑː, -ə

schwa (plural schwas)

1. (phonetics) An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.

   Synonyms: natural vowel, neutral vowel

   Hyponym: schwar

   Coordinate terms: a-schwa, e-schwa, i-schwa, schwar, schwi

   • 1882, B. W. Wells, “The Ablaut in English”, in Transactions of the American Philological Association, page 67:

     The participle has also, owing to the accent, the lightest possible forms; but here there was no reduplication, and so in class I. the "schwa" took the form e before single mutes or fricatives, and elsewhere o.

   • 2006 April 27, Sylvia Moosmüller, Theodor Granser, “The spread of Standard Albanian: An illustration based on an analysis of vowels”, in Language Variation and Change, volume 18, number 2, Cambridge University Press, →DOI:

     However, word-final unstressed schwa is deleted even by the speakers from South Albania, though to different degrees and dependant on the speech style […]

2. The character ə.

schwa (third-person singular simple present schwas, present participle schwaing, simple past and past participle schwaed)

1. (phonetics, of a vowel sound, rare) To be reduced to schwa.

• schwa on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

schwa (plural schwas)

1. Alternative form of shva

• chaws

• scevà

Borrowed from German Schwa or English schwa, from Hebrew שווא / שְׁוָא (sh'va ,š’vā, “nought”).

• IPA^(key): ^*/ˈʃva/, ^*/ʃeˈva/^*, ^*/ʃəˈva/^*, ^*/ˈʃwa/
• Rhymes: -a

schwa m or f (invariable)

1. (phonetics) schwa (mid-central vowel)

• xuá, xevá, chevá

Unadapted borrowing from English schwa.

schwa m (plural schwas)

1. (phonetics) schwa (mid-central vowel)