Cwm and crwth do not contain the letters a, e, i, o, u, or y, the usual vowels (that is, the usual symbols that stand for vowel sounds) in English. But in those words the letter w simply serves instead, standing for the same sound that oo stands for in the words boom and booth.
The longest words that contain no vowel and no 'y' are crwth (a Celtic stringed instrument), cwtch (a shed, cuddle, or hiding place), phpht (an expression of mild irritation), and grrrl (part of the phrase 'riot girl', which describes a subculture that mixes feminism and punk rock).
5 Letter Words without Vowels with Meanings
Flyby: In spaceflight, it refers to the action or process of flying past a specific point.
Unfortunately, there are no words in English that are made up entirely of vowels, so we will have to settle for the next best thing: a five-letter word containing four of them.
Strengths, at nine letters long, is the longest word in the English language with only one vowel.
Shh, psst, and hmm do not have vowels, either vowel symbols or vowel sounds. There is some controversy whether they are in fact “words,” however.
11 Tsktsk: If you tsktsk someone, you indicate your disapproval by the tsktsk sound or by some other means. Tsktsks is the longest word that doesn't contain a vowel.
Schwa – The Lazy Sound
Schwa is related to the short vowel sounds because it can be spelled by any of them, including the semi-vowel 'y'. I like to refer to it as the 'lazy' vowel cousin.
The word "floccinaucinihilipilification" means "the estimation of something as worthless." It's an 18th-century coinage that combines four Latin prefixes meaning "nothing."
However, it is not included in any major English dictionary. There are several seven-letter words containing all the vowels, including SEQUOIA, EULOGIA, MIAOUED, ADOULIE, EUCOSIA, EUNOMIA, EUTOPIA, MOINEAU, and DOULEIA. The relatively common French word OISEAU (meaning bird) contains all five vowels, once each.
We found 54 five-letter words without vowels (a,e,i,o,u).
As it turns out, the number varies widely. The Free Dictionary lists more than 158,000 words with five letters. The the Official Scrabble Dictionary (which allows some pretty obscure five-letter words), puts the number at about 9,000.
Dichlorodifluoromethane (23 letters)
What is a nine letter word with one vowel? There aren't many English words made up of nine letters that only have one vowel. Perhaps the most commonly used word of this nature is STRENGTHS. Some others you've probably heard of include STYLISHLY and DYSTROPHY.
The graph above shows that the vowel U is the least frequent of the 5 vowels.
In fact, there are only five words on this list without a Y. Crwth and cwtch are Welsh words that English has adopted. Grrrl and grrls are slang words, and phpht is a commonly accepted onomatopoeic word.
The alphabet is made up of 26 letters, 5 of which are vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and the rest of which are consonants. A vowel is a sound that is made by allowing breath to flow out of the mouth, without closing any part of the mouth or throat.
Regardless of what position you take on the issue, it's clear that nearly all English words have at least one vowel, regardless of how you define it. Vowels are important and make nearly every word better!
R-colored vowels are exceedingly rare, occurring in less than one percent of all languages. However, they occur in two of the most widely spoken languages: North American English and Mandarin Chinese. In North American English, they are found in words such as dollar, butter, third, color, and nurse.
Eunoia, at six letters long, is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five main vowels. Seven letter words with this property include adoulie, douleia, eucosia, eulogia, eunomia, eutopia, miaoued, moineau, sequoia, and suoidea. (The scientific name iouea is a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges.)
As most players would expect, there are dozens and dozens of five-letter words that just contain “A” as the only vowel. Along with there being a ton of possible words, most of these words are also fairly common in the English language.
Typically, y represents a consonant when it starts off a word or syllable, as in yard, lawyer, or beyond. Technically, this sound of \y\ is considered a semivowel or glide, which is a less prominent vowel speech sound that occurs in the articulation of two consecutive vowel sounds unequal in prominence.