Word.ws English Dictionary

Cowgill's law

Cowgill's law proper noun: a law of sound change, stating that a former /o/ vowel in Proto-Greek becomes /u/ between a resonant (/r/, /l/, /m/, /n/) and a labial consonant (including labiovelars), in either order.

Proper noun

Cowgill's law

  1. (Indo-European-studies) A law of sound change, stating that a former /o/ vowel in Proto-Greek becomes /u/ between a resonant (/r/, /l/, /m/, /n/) and a labial consonant (including labiovelars), in either order.
  2. (Indo-European-studies) A law of sound change, stating that a Proto-Indo-European laryngeal /h₃/, and possibly /h₂/, turns into /k/ when directly preceded by a sonorant and followed by /w/.

Origin of Cowgill's law

Named after Indo-Europeanist Warren Cowgill.

Questions about Cowgill's law

What does Cowgill's law mean?
Cowgill's law means a law of sound change, stating that a former /o/ vowel in Proto-Greek becomes /u/ between a resonant (/r/, /l/, /m/, /n/) and a labial consonant (including labiovelars), in either order.
What part of speech is Cowgill's law?
Cowgill's law is a proper noun.

Words near Cowgill's law in the dictionary

  1. cowgal
  2. cowgals
  3. Cowger
  4. Cowgers
  5. Cowgill
  6. Cowgill's law
  7. cowgirl
  8. cowgirl boot
  9. cowgirl boots
  10. cowgirl hat
  11. cowgirl hats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Cowgill's law (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Cowgill's law.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cowgill%27s_law. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.