schwa
/ʃwɑ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
humorous/ʃwə/
schwa noun: an indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA. Also the alternative form of shva.
Noun
schwa (plural schwas)
- An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
- The participle has also, owing to the accent, the lightest possible forms; but here there was no reduplication, and so in class I. the "schwa" took the form e before single mutes or fricatives, and elsewhere o.1882, B. W. Wells, “The Ablaut in English”, in Transactions of the American Philological Association, page 67
- However, word-final unstressed schwa is deleted even by the speakers from South Albania, though to different degrees and dependant on the speech style[…]2006 April 27, Sylvia Moosmüller, Theodor Granser, “The spread of Standard Albanian: An illustration based on an analysis of vowels”, in Language Variation and Change, volume 18, number 2, Cambridge...
- Synonyms:
- natural vowel, neutral vowel
- The name of the Latin script letter Ə/ə.
Verb
schwa (third-person singular simple present schwas, present participle schwaing, simple past and past participle schwaed)
- To be reduced to schwa.
Also used as
schwa is also the alternative form of shva.
schwa meaning in Hindi, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian
schwa in Hindi
- indeterminate central vowel
- श्वा śvā
schwa in Arabic
- indeterminate central vowel
- شْوَا šwā
schwa in Indonesian
- indeterminate central vowel
- pepet
schwa in Persian
- indeterminate central vowel
- واکهٔ بیرنگ, شوا švâ
Synonyms of schwa
Forms of schwa
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | schwas |
| alternative form | shwa |
| alternative form (rare) | schwə |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | schwas |
| present participle | schwaing |
| past participle | schwaed |
| past | schwaed |
Origin of schwa
Borrowed from German Schwa, from Hebrew שווא / שְׁוָא (shva, šəwā, “(mark indicating reduction or absence of a vowel)”), borrowed from Classical Syriac ܫ̈ܘܰܝܳܐ (š'wayyā, literally “even, equal”), in Syriac a term for a sign consisting of two vertical dots used to separate parts of a sentence. Doublet of shva.
Words formed from schwa
- a-schwa ⟨ɐ⟩
- e-schwa ⟨ə⟩
- schwa deletion
- schwa indogermanicum
- schwaless
- schwa primum
- schwar ⟨ɚ⟩
- ⟨ɝ⟩
- schwa secundum
- schwi ⟨ᵻ⟩
- ⟨ɨ⟩
- schwu ⟨ᵿ⟩
- ⟨ɵ⟩
Words that rhyme with schwa
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- Moskva
- Nansha
- rah
- shikar
- ah
- aha
- alhamdulillah
- Amapá
- Benoit
- Bogotá
- fa
- galah
- goombah
- huzzah
- inshallah
- Jah
- la
- lah-di-dah
- ma
- moire
- mudra
- ménage à trois
- na
- omertà
- ooh la la
- pa
- shah
- Shangri-La
- sis boom bah
- ta
- wah
- Xisha
- 'za
- allah
- ar
- arthra
- Aymara
- baa
- bah
- Bogota
- boyar
- bra
- cha
- cha cha cha
- chamar
- che sara sara
- chicken paw
- da
Questions about schwa
- What does schwa mean?
- Schwa means an indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
- What is schwa in Hindi?
- Schwa in Hindi is श्वा (śvā). See Schwa meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is schwa?
- Schwa can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce schwa?
- Schwa is pronounced /ʃwɑ/.
- What is the plural of schwa?
- The plural of schwa is schwas.
Words near schwa in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-schwa.ogg.
Cite this entry: “schwa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/schwa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.