schwa

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
13
Words With Friends
13
Letters
5
Pronunciation
/ʃwɑ/
See all 3 pronunciations
/ʃwɑ/ · /ʃwə/ · /ʃwʌ/

Definition of schwa

4 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
    “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.”
    “However, word-final unstressed schwa is deleted even by the speakers from South Albania, though to different degrees and dependant on the speech style[…]”
See all 4 definitions

noun

  1. An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
    “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.”
    “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 name of the Latin script letter Ə/ə.
  3. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of shva.

verb

  1. (rare)To be reduced to schwa.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Borrowed from German Schwa, from Hebrew שווא / שְׁוָא (shva, šəwā, “(mark indicating reduction or absence of a vowel)”), 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. Doublet of shva.

Anagrams of schwa

2 plays · some not in Scrabble

Best play chaws 13 points

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

A single letter you can add to schwa to make another valid word.

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