umlaut
/ˈʊm.laʊt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.04 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants.
noun
The umlaut process (as above) that occurred historically in Germanic languages whereby back vowels became front vowels when followed by syllable containing a front vocoid (e.g. Germanic lūsiz > Old English lȳs(i) > Modern English lice).
noun
A vowel so assimilated.
noun
The diacritical mark ( ¨ ) placed over a vowel when it indicates a (rounded) front vowel
Example Sentences
- "In fits of concealed despair that went unnoticed even by those close enough to touch, Julien cursed the language of umlauts, eszetts, and gerunds."
- "A tittle is more or less the same thing (the dot over an i, for instance), except that it can be traced back to Medieval Latin for a little mark over or under a letter, such as an accent ague or a cedilla. I don't know whether an umlaut is one or two tittles. Maybe it's a jot and a tittle side by side."
- ""Naïve" takes an umlaut because it is pronounced as two syllables."
- "California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸)."
- "We kept some of the foreign alphabet symbols such as the accented and umlauted vowels and Greek letters and used the rest of the space for more esoteric linguistic symbols such as "barred-l," and "engma.""
- "an umlauting vowel"
Etymology
Etymology tree German um- 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 Umlautbor. English umlaut Borrowed from German Umlaut in the 19ᵗʰ century, from um- or um (“around, re-, trans-”) + Laut (“sound”), from Old High German hlūt. More at loud.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈʊm.laʊt/
- British English: /ˈʊm.laʊt/