Word.ws English Dictionary

emvowel

/ɪmˈvaʊ.əl/

emvowel verb: to replace a portion of a person's name with a dash in printing, in order to avoid libel.

Verb

emvowel (third-person singular simple present emvowels, present participle (US) emvoweling or (UK) emvowelling, simple past and past participle (US) emvoweled or (UK) emvowelled)

  1. (dated, humorous) To replace a portion of a person's name with a dash in printing, in order to avoid libel.
    • And as for all the words I embowel, or rather emvowel, I will never ſo mangle them, but they ſhall be all as well known as if they retained every vowel in them.1747 December, Henry Fielding, The Gentleman's Magazine, London, page 579, column 2
    • Finally, to judge whether ſhe is abſolutely cried up as a BEAUTY, we muſt conſult the wooden regiſters, the benches in the public walks, and the window-panes in coffee-houſes and taverns; where you'll be ſure to ſee her name in acroſticks, or either emvowel'd, or written in full length, accompanied...1751, The Student: Or, The Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, Oxford, page 257

Examples of emvowel in a sentence

  • I ſhall not encroach on the Old Baily Patriot in his priviledge of emvowelling, daſhing, aſterizing, and italicizing.1752 January 16, Bonnell Thornton, Have At You All: or, The Drury-Lane Journal, London, page 13:
  • But this barbarous custom of emvowelling words, is now quite exploded, in prose at least, by the best authors.1775, Richard Wynne, “Appendix”, in An Universal Grammar, London, page 122:
  • Fielding is let off lightly with a running comment on his misspellings and other peculiarities of style—deliberate punning and emvoweling.1915, Gerard Edward Jensen, “Introduction”, in The Covent Garden Journal, volume I, New Haven: Yale University Press, page 69:

Forms of emvowel

third-person singular presentemvowels
present participle USemvoweling
present participle UKemvowelling
past participle USemvoweled
past USemvoweled
past participle UKemvowelled
past UKemvowelled
alternative formenvowel

Origin of emvowel

Coined by Henry Fielding (1707-1754) as a jocular alteration of embowel (“disembowel”).

Words that rhyme with emvowel

Questions about emvowel

What does emvowel mean?
Emvowel means to replace a portion of a person's name with a dash in printing, in order to avoid libel.
How do you use emvowel in a sentence?
I ſhall not encroach on the Old Baily Patriot in his priviledge of emvowelling, daſhing, aſterizing, and italicizing.
What part of speech is emvowel?
Emvowel is a verb.
How do you pronounce emvowel?
Emvowel is pronounced /ɪmˈvaʊ.əl/.
What is the past tense of emvowel?
The past tense of emvowel is emvoweled.

Words near emvowel in the dictionary

  1. emutails
  2. emuwary
  3. emuwren
  4. emuwrens
  5. EMV
  6. emvowel
  7. emvowelled
  8. emvowelling
  9. emvowels
  10. emyd
  11. emyde

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: emvowel (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:

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

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