schwa

/ʃwɑ/

Linguistic scholars might be most likely to discuss the schwa, or the unstressed vowel sound in a word, but we all use the schwa every day.

We'd all be tongue-tied without it — the most common vowel sound in English, represented by an upside-down e and ready to spring into action in almost any unstressed syllable. The second syllable of sofa is one example of an English schwa. The word schwa is from the Hebrew word shewa, which denotes a diacritical mark meaning "no vowel," and literally means "emptiness."

Definitions of schwa

1. noun

   a neutral middle vowel; occurs in unstressed syllables
   synonyms: shwa

   types:

   murmur, murmur vowel

   a schwa that is incidental to the pronunciation of a consonant

   type of:

   vowel, vowel sound

   a speech sound made with the vocal tract open