Word.ws English Dictionary

Great Vowel Shift

Great Vowel Shift proper noun: a major change in the pronunciation of the English language, affecting the sounds of long vowels, that took place in England between 1350 and 1700.

Proper noun

the Great Vowel Shift

  1. A major change in the pronunciation of the English language, affecting the sounds of long vowels, that took place in England between 1350 and 1700.
    • Because English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling.

Origin of Great Vowel Shift

Coined by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen.

Questions about Great Vowel Shift

What does Great Vowel Shift mean?
Great Vowel Shift means a major change in the pronunciation of the English language, affecting the sounds of long vowels, that took place in England between 1350 and 1700.
What part of speech is Great Vowel Shift?
Great Vowel Shift is a proper noun.

Words near Great Vowel Shift in the dictionary

  1. great unwashed
  2. Great Urswick
  3. Great Vehicle
  4. great vessel
  5. great vessels
  6. Great Vowel Shift
  7. Great Wagon
  8. Great Wakering
  9. great wall
  10. Great Wall of China
  11. Great Wall of Sand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Great Vowel Shift (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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