Schwi

//ʃwiː// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An indeterminate near-close central unrounded vowel sound, such as the "e" in "roses" or the "y" in "very", depending on the accent; sometimes represented as [[[ɨ]]] in IPA or [[[ᵻ]]] in para-IPA.

    "Similarly the syllable "day" in "Sunday" is to be printed smaller than the rest of the type and in the higher position to show, first that the vowel is unstressed and second that the sounds needs to be "schwi,""

Example

More examples

"Similarly the syllable "day" in "Sunday" is to be printed smaller than the rest of the type and in the higher position to show, first that the vowel is unstressed and second that the sounds needs to be "schwi,""

Etymology

Alteration of vowel in the word schwa to more closely approximate the sound described.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.