Word.ws English Dictionary

a-schwa

a-schwa noun: the vowel [ɐ], which lies between [a] and [ə] (true schwa).

Noun

a-schwa (plural a-schwas)

  1. The vowel [ɐ], which lies between [a] and [ə] (true schwa).
    • Fact is that non-low vowels before /R/ are lowered or form falling diphthongs with an a-schwa, which apparently calls for a spreading analysis.2003, John R. Rennison, Friedrich Neubarth, An x-bar theory of Government Phonology: Living on the Edge, 28 Papers in Honour of Jonathan Kaye, Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 128
    • Similar to German, the a-schwa plural suffix may combine with Umlaut, and Umlaut can also be the only plural marker (i.e. "combine with zero").a. 2008, Dorit Ravid, Wolfgang U. Dressler, Bracha Nir-Sagiv, Katharina Korecky-Kröll, Agnita Souman, Katja Rehfeldt, Sabine Laaha, Johannes Bertl, Hans Basbøll and Steven Gillis, "Core morphology in...

Forms of a-schwa

plurala-schwas

Questions about a-schwa

What does a-schwa mean?
A-schwa means the vowel [ɐ], which lies between [a] and [ə] (true schwa).
What part of speech is a-schwa?
A-schwa is a noun.
What is the plural of a-schwa?
The plural of a-schwa is a-schwas.

Words near a-schwa in the dictionary

  1. A-Rod
  2. A-roll
  3. A-rolls
  4. a-row
  5. a-Santa-ist
  6. a-schwa
  7. a-schwas
  8. A-shaped
  9. a-sharp
  10. A-sharp major
  11. A-sharp minor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: a-schwa (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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