ablaut
/ˈɑbˌlaʊt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.38 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The substitution of one root vowel for another, thus indicating a corresponding modification of use or meaning; vowel permutation, distinct from the phonetic influence of a succeeding vowel.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "I declare to you that Literature was not written for schoolmasters, nor for schoolmistresses. I would not exchange it for a wilderness of schoolmasters. It should be delivered from them, who, with their silly Ablauts and ‘tendencies,’ can themselves neither read nor write."
- "This root must once have ablauted, given the associated nominal derivatives prthii- 'broad', prthivl- 'earth'. However, it does not ablaut at all in its verbal forms."
- "What we find is that one cannot predict which members of V a given member of E will cause to ablaut"
- "It is these co-opted verbs that tend to ablaut variably in the different Dakotan dialects and that forced morphological restructuring"
- "This allomorph also causes the back vowel to ablaut to a low vowel."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó Proto-Germanic *ab Old High German ab Middle High German ab German ab German ab- Proto-Indo-European *ḱlew- Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *ḱlutós Proto-Germanic *hlūdaz Proto-West Germanic *hlūd Old High German lūt Middle High German lūt German Laut German Ablautbor. English ablaut Borrowed from German Ablaut (“sound gradation”), which is from ab- or ab (“down, off”), + Laut (“sound”). Ab is used here in the sense of “deviating, varying” as in Abgott (“god other than the true God”), Abart (“different sort, variety, anomality”).
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɑbˌlaʊt/