Word.ws English Dictionary

disemvowel

Syllables: dis·em·vow·el/ˌdɪsɛmˈvaʊəl/US/ˌdɪsəmˈvaʊ(ə)l/

disemvowel verb: to remove the vowels from, for example, for the purpose of expurgating offensive words.

Verb

disemvowel (third-person singular simple present disemvowels, present participle (US) disemvoweling or (UK) disemvowelling, simple past and past participle (US) disemvoweled or (UK) disemvowelled)

  1. (humorous, sometimes, transitive) To remove the vowels from, for example, for the purpose of expurgating offensive words.
    • By the way, what has become of the conspiracy of Brander Matthews et als to disemvowel the English language? Not that it matters.1906 September 5, Puck, volume 60, number 1540, New York, N.Y.: Puck Pub. Co., →OCLC
    • The trick will be in usurping as many vowels as you can, thus disemvoweling the others, and the one with the most words when all or as many letters as possible are used up wins.1930, Judge, volume 98, New York, N.Y.: The Judge Publishing Co., →OCLC, page xlix, column 2

Examples of disemvowel in a sentence

  • "It must be part of the Silliness that's infecting the Author's Altiverse." / "S wht hppnd? / "You've been disemvoweled," the Amigoid informed her.1995 October 28, strange days indeed [username], “AA: is that a nerfsword in your pocket, or …”, in bit.listserv.superguy (Usenet)...
  • Edna [Dame Edna Everage] reveals that she will always outmuscle [Barry] Humphries, disemvowelling his name to reduce it to the interjection "Hmmph!"2004, Paul Matthew St. Pierre, “Autobiography as Mockery, or Barry Humphries in Mock Turtle”, in A Portrait of the Artist as Australia...
  • If someone you've disemvowelled comes back and behaves, forgive and forget their earlier gaffes.2006 December, Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong, “Community Conference”, in The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating...
  • Back to our Internet trolling behavior, some comment board moderators have tried to control trolling by "disemvoweling," removing all the vowels from the offending comments of trolls.2011, Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould, Psychology Around Us, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 16:

Forms of disemvowel

third-person singular presentdisemvowels
present participle USdisemvoweling
present participle UKdisemvowelling
past participle USdisemvoweled
past USdisemvoweled
past participle UKdisemvowelled
past UKdisemvowelled
alternative formdisenvowel

Origin of disemvowel

Blend of disembowel + vowel.

Words that rhyme with disemvowel

Questions about disemvowel

What does disemvowel mean?
Disemvowel means to remove the vowels from, for example, for the purpose of expurgating offensive words.
How do you use disemvowel in a sentence?
"It must be part of the Silliness that's infecting the Author's Altiverse." / "S wht hppnd? / "You've been disemvoweled," the Amigoid informed her.
What part of speech is disemvowel?
Disemvowel is a verb.
How do you pronounce disemvowel?
Disemvowel is pronounced /ˌdɪsɛmˈvaʊəl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of disemvowel?
The past tense of disemvowel is disemvoweled.

Words near disemvowel in the dictionary

  1. disempowering
  2. disempoweringly
  3. disempowerment
  4. disempowerments
  5. disempowers
  6. disemvowel
  7. disemvoweled
  8. disemvoweling
  9. disemvowelled
  10. disemvowelling
  11. disemvowelment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: disemvowel (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-disemvowel.wav.

Cite this entry: “disemvowel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/disemvowel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.