vocables

Noun

vocable (plural vocables)

1. A word or utterance, especially with reference to its form rather than its meaning.
   • Without words and almost with the seriousness of asylum nurses they at once set upon an unsavoury-looking matron who began to cry out Mediterranean vocables of distress.1974, Anthony Burgess, The Clockwork Testament
2. A syllable or sound without specific meaning, used together with or in place of actual words in a song.
   • Many Native American songs employ vocables, syllables that do not have referential meaning. These may be used to frame words or may be inserted among them; in some cases, they constitute the entire song text.a. 2010, Victoria Lindsay Levine, Native American Music, Encyclopaedia Britannica

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