Word.ws English Dictionary

weak vowel merger

US/ˈwik ˈvaʊ.əl ˌmɝ.d͡ʒɚ/

weak vowel merger noun: a phenomenon found in English pronunciation where the phonemes /ə/ (schwa) and /ɪ/ (the near-close near-front unrounded vowel) are not distinguished from eachother when unstressed, with the resulting ambiguous phoneme represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɨ/ (a close central rounded vowel).

Noun

weak vowel merger or the weak vowel merger (countable and uncountable, plural weak vowel mergers)

  1. (uncountable) A phenomenon found in English pronunciation where the phonemes /ə/ (schwa) and /ɪ/ (the near-close near-front unrounded vowel) are not distinguished from eachother when unstressed, with the resulting ambiguous phoneme represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɨ/ (a close central rounded vowel).
  2. (countable) An instance of this merger in a specific usage or pronunciation of a word or phrase.
    • Because many terms in various dialects of English undergo weak vowel mergers, words ending with /ə/ and /ɪ/ which usually do not rhyme could be considered to with eachother.

Forms of weak vowel merger

pluralweak vowel mergers

Origin of weak vowel merger

Because the two "weak" vowels, /ə/ and /ɪ/, which are often found at the end of non-ultimately-stressed words, are not distinguished.

Questions about weak vowel merger

What does weak vowel merger mean?
Weak vowel merger means a phenomenon found in English pronunciation where the phonemes /ə/ (schwa) and /ɪ/ (the near-close near-front unrounded vowel) are not distinguished from eachother when unstressed, with the resulting ambiguous phoneme represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɨ/ (a close central rounded vowel).
What part of speech is weak vowel merger?
Weak vowel merger is a noun.
How do you pronounce weak vowel merger?
Weak vowel merger is pronounced /ˈwik ˈvaʊ.əl ˌmɝ.d͡ʒɚ/ (US).
What is the plural of weak vowel merger?
The plural of weak vowel merger is weak vowel mergers.

Words near weak vowel merger in the dictionary

  1. weak tea
  2. weak typing
  3. weak ulcer
  4. weak verb
  5. weak verbs
  6. weak vowel merger
  7. weak-bladdered
  8. weak-chinned
  9. weak-eyed
  10. weak-handed
  11. weak-handedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: weak vowel merger (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: “weak vowel merger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/weak_vowel_merger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.