syllable

▪ I. syllable, n.
    (ˈsɪləb(ə)l)
    Forms: 4–7 sillable, (4 silable, 5 sillabil, -byl, sylable, -bul, syllabylle, cyllable, 7 sillabell), 6– syllable. β. dial. 5, 9 sinnable, 9 synnable.
    [a. AF. sillable = OF. sillabe (12th c.), mod.F. syllabe, ad. L. syllaba, a. Gr. συλλαβή, f. συλλαµβάνειν to take, put, or bring together, f. σύν syn-¹ + λαµβάνειν (stem λαβ-) to take.]
    1. a. A vocal sound or set of sounds uttered with a single effort of articulation and forming a word or an element of a word; each of the elements of spoken language comprising a sound of greater sonority (vowel or vowel-equivalent) with or without one or more sounds of less sonority (consonants or consonant-equivalents); also, a character or set of characters forming a corresponding element of written language.

c 1384 Chaucer H. Fame iii. 8 Though somme vers fayle in A sillable. c 1386 ― Sqr.'s T. 93 After the forme vsed in his langage With outen vice of silable or of lettre. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) II. 437 Ascanius was i-cleped Iulus..a name of tweie silables. c 1430 Stans Puer (Lamb. MS.) 98 in Babees Bk. (1868) 33 In þis writynge..Yf ouȝt be mys, in worde, sillable, or dede, I submitte me to correccioun withoute ony debate. a 1491 J. Rows Roll vii. (1859) B 3 b, The furst sinnable of hys naavm [sc. Arth⁓gallus] that ys to seey Arth or Narthe is asmuch to sey in Walsh as a bere. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 158 Not clipping the syllables, nor skyppyng ony worde. 1555 W. Watreman Fardle Facions i. iv. 40 Yeat ware not their Letters facioned to ioyne together in sillables like ours. a 1568 R. Ascham Scholem. ii. (Arb.) 145 Our English tong, hauing in vse chiefly, wordes of one syllable. 1612 Brinsley Posing Parts (1669) 90 When is a Noun said to increase? A. When it hath more syllables in the Genitive case, than in the Nominative. a 1711 Ken Psyche Poet. Wks. 1721 IV. 281 Return, Re― in this Syllable she fail'd. 1762–71 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) I. 277 On the back ground the front of a castle with columns; on the bases of which are the syllables Es—sex. 1880 W. S. Rockstro in Grove Dict. Mus. I. 734/1 The sounds [of each hexachord] are sung..to the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, the semitone always falling between the syllables mi and fa. 1890 [see syllabic B. 2]. 1899 R. J. Lloyd Northern English §105 Speech is a succession of sounds continually rising and falling in sonority. Each single short wave of sonority, one rise and one fall, is a syllable. Ibid. §107 The most sonorous phone of a syllable is its vowel: the rest are its consonants. 1908 Sweet Sounds of English §150 The beginning of a syllable corresponds to the beginning of the stress with which it is uttered. Thus in atone the strong stress and the second syllable begin on the t, and in bookcase buk:keis on the second k.

    b. Used pregnantly of a word of one syllable, or in reference to a part of a word, considered in relation to its significance.

1390 Gower Conf. III. 343 That o sillable [sc. nay] hath overthrowe A thousend wordes. 1577 T. Vautrollier Luther on Ep. Gal. 21 Learne this definition diligently, and especially so exercise this pronoune our, that this one sillable being beleeued, may swallow vp all thy sinnes. 1577 Harrison England ii. v. (1877) i. 115 This syllable Sir, which is the title whereby we call our knights. 1603 Owen Pembrokeshire (1892) 267 [The Fox and Marton] are desired onelye for the two last sillables of theire Carcases [i.e. ‘cases’ = skins]. 1781 Cowper Hope 690 Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin. 1796 Burke Corr. (1844) IV. 397 What can make us in love with oppression because the syllables ‘Jacobin’ are not put before the ‘ism’?

    c. Colloq. phr. in words of one syllable, in simple language.

1922 F. H. Burnett Head of House of Combe xvii. 206 The French Revolution..—the cataclysms of agony—need not have been, but they were. To put it in words of one syllable. 1941 V. Woolf Between Acts 218 Let's talk in words of one syllable, without larding, stuffing or cant. 1966 ‘E. Lathen’ Murder makes Wheels go Round xxi. 166 ‘John,’ he said breathlessly, ‘would you please explain in words of one syllable.’ 1970 Guardian 9 Mar. 24/1 Why don't they tell us precisely, in words of one syllable, how they would behave if they were in our place?

    2. a. The least portion or detail of speech or writing (or of something expressed or expressible in speech or writing); the least mention, hint, or trace of something: esp. in negative context.

1434 Misyn Mending Life 118 All our prayer with desire and effect sal be, so þat we ouer-rynne not þe wordis, bot nerehand all sillabyls with grete cry & desire we sal offyr to owr lorde. 1533 More Apol. 8 b, Of all theyr owne wordes I leue not one syllable out. 1583 B. Melbancke Philotimus Cc iv, One sillable of thine shall more perswade mee, then the sage sentences of anye other. 1604 Shakes. Oth. iv. ii. 5, I heard, Each syllable that breath made vp betweene them. 1605 ― Macb. v. v. 21 To the last Syllable of Recorded time. 1687 Atterbury Answ. Consid. Spirit Luther 47 To this there's not a syllable of proof offer'd. 1768 Goldsm. Good-n. Man ii. i, I know every syllable of the matter. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl., Let. to Lewis 2 Apr., Don't say a syllable of the matter to any living soul. 1801 Colman Poor Gentl. iii. i. 34 There isn't a syllable of sense in all you have been saying. 1876 Green Stray Stud. 189 The name of Dante is mentioned but once, and then without a syllable of comment. 1885 D. C. Murray Rainbow Gold ii. iii, I ain't a-going to breathe a synnable.

    † b. pl. Minute details of language or statement; exact or precise words. Obs.

1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxviii §2 Our imitation of him consisteth not in tying scrupulously our selues vnto his sillables. 1614 Selden Titles Hon. ii. i. 173 Whose syllables I the rather cite, because..he iustifies himself out of the Instrument of that Donation, which, by his assertion, he made vse of.

    † 3. With reference to the etymological sense: A composite thing, a compound. Obs. nonce-use.

1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. v. 849 Life and Understanding..are no Syllables or Complexions,..nor can either the Qualities of Heat and Cold, Moist and Dry; or else Magnitudes, Figures, Sites, and Motions, however Combined together, as Letters Spell them out, and make them up.

    4. attrib. and Comb., as syllable-count, syllable-division, syllable stress, etc.; syllable-counting, syllable-final, syllable-initial adjs.; syllable-monger (nonce-wd.), one who makes verses (regarded merely as an orderly arrangement of syllables); syllable-timed a., of or having a rhythm in which syllables occur at roughly equivalent time intervals; opp. stress-timed adj. s.v. stress n. 11; hence syllable-timing.

1969 Language XLV. 250 The text itself is composed in syllable-count verse forms. 1983 Listener 6 Jan. 21/3 Pop lyrics writers throw in an ‘oh yeah’ or a ‘baby’ wherever the syllable-count needs padding out.

1959 PMLA LXXIV. 588/2 This has been done on strictly accentual (plus syllable-counting) principles. 1978 Early Music Oct. 587/3 He describes in detail three kinds of relationship..between words and music in the period—the metrical..the accentual..the syllable-counting (the characteristic mode of Christian and much courtly poetry).

1888 Sweet Hist. Engl. Sounds §19 It is possible to alter the syllable division by shifting the stress from one element to another.

1964 B. Malmberg in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 116 Many languages have an opposition between explosive (syllable-initial) and implosive (syllable-final) consonant. 1978 Language LIV. 23 Durand..points out that the [t] in petit orage ‘little storm’ is syllable-initial, while the [t] in petite orange ‘little orange’ appears to be syllable-final for most speakers.

1890 Sweet Primer Phonetics §150 Syllable-formers [see syllabic B. 2].

1964, 1978 Syllable-initial [see syllable-final adj. above].

1784 Cowper Let. to W. Unwin 5 Apr., As my two syllablemongers, Beattie and Blair, both agree that language was originally inspired [etc.].

1924 H. E. Palmer Gram. Spoken Eng. i. 6 Word-stress (in the opinion of the author the term syllable-stress would be more appropriate). This term is used with reference to a syllable. 1964 W. S. Allen in D. Abercombie et al. Daniel Jones 14 These remarks on English verse are intended only to apply to the ‘syllable-stress’ metres.

1890 Billings Med. Dict., Syllable-stumbling, a form of paralytic dysphasia in which there is difficulty in speaking a word as a whole, although each letter and syllable can be distinctly sounded.

1947 K. L. Pike Phonemics i. ii. 13/1 In English one tends to hear stress-timed rhythm in contra-distinction to a syllable-timed rhythm. In the syllable-timed type the syllables themselves tend to be more or less equally spaced... As a result of the syllable timing the vowels are likely to be clear cut. 1980 English World-Wide I. i. 108 This, as well as the syllable-timed rhythm, gives rise to the staccato impression often noticed by outsiders.

1964 M. A. K. Halliday et al. Linguistic Sci. 72 The English type of rhythm is known as ‘stress-timing’, by contrast with the ‘syllable timing’ of French.

▪ II. ˈsyllable, v.
    [f. prec. n.]
    1. trans. ? To arrange in syllables. rare^—1.

c 1475 Partenay 6581 Als the frensh staffes silabled be More breueloker and shorter also Then is the english lines vnto see.

    2. To utter or express in (or as in) syllables or articulate speech; to pronounce syllable by syllable; to utter articulately or distinctly; to articulate. Also fig.

1633 P. Fletcher Poet. Misc., tr. Asclepiads 3 Unwritten Word, which never eye could see, Yet syllabled in flesh⁓spell'd character. 1634 Milton Comus 208 Airy tongues, that syllable mens names On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses. 1751 Ld. Stormont On Death Frederic Pr. Wales 6 in Epicedia Oxon. C 2, To syllable new sounds in accent strange. 1820 Byron Mar. Fal. iii. i. 58, I cannot shape my tongue To syllable black deeds into smooth names. 1852 Whittier First-Day Thoughts 7 There syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear. 1886 M. E. Braddon One Thing Needful v, The first prayer those lips had ever syllabled.

    b. To read (something) syllable by syllable; to read in detail or with close attention; to spell out. rare.

1728 P. Walker Peden in Biog. Presbyt. (1827) I. p. xxxi, This bruitish, carnal Age knows not what it is to syllable the Scriptures, or feed upon them. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. ii. ii, These things were the Alphabet, whereby in after-time he was to syllable and partly read the grand Volume of the World.

    c. To represent by syllables. rare.

1887 Newton in Encycl. Brit. XXII. 200/2 Loud notes [of a snipe] that have been syllabled tinker, tinker, tinker.

    3. intr. To utter syllables, to speak. nonce-use.

1829 Keats Lamia i. 244 Turn'd—syllabling thus, ‘Ah, Lycius bright’.

    Hence ˈsyllabled (-b(ə)ld) ppl. a.; ˈsyllabling vbl. n.

1819 Metropolis I. 215 The three words drawn to the utmost extent of syllabling. 1843 Carlyle Past & Pr. ii. xvii, Men had not a hammer to begin with, not a syllabled articulation. 1865 Mrs. Whitney Gayworthys xxvii. (1879) 269 The tree-whispers sounded like a syllabled sympathy. 1876 Ruskin Fors Clav. lxxi. §2. 360 The painted syllabling of it. 1885 J. H. Dell Dawning Grey, Songs Surges 98 The songs of the surges I shaped to a syllabled sound.

Oxford English Dictionary