Word.ws English Dictionary

shva

/ʃvɑː/

shva noun: a Hebrew nikud vowel sign written as two vertical dots beneath a letter, in Israeli Hebrew indicating either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel.

Noun

shva (plural shvas)

  1. A Hebrew nikud vowel sign written as two vertical dots beneath a letter, in Israeli Hebrew indicating either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel.

Forms of shva

pluralshvas
alternative formschwa
alternative formsheva
alternative formshewa

Origin of shva

From Hebrew שווא / שְׁוָא (shvá, šəwɔʾ). Doublet of schwa.

Questions about shva

What does shva mean?
Shva means a Hebrew nikud vowel sign written as two vertical dots beneath a letter, in Israeli Hebrew indicating either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel.
What part of speech is shva?
Shva is a noun.
How do you pronounce shva?
Shva is pronounced /ʃvɑː/.
What is the plural of shva?
The plural of shva is shvas.

Words near shva in the dictionary

  1. shuvosaurids
  2. Shuvra
  3. shuwa
  4. shuyookh
  5. SHV
  6. shva
  7. shvantz
  8. shvantzes
  9. shvartser
  10. shvartsers
  11. shvartze

Source and license

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