The name of the Latin-script letter Ə/ə.
Used in a Sentence
schwa
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for schwa.
Editorial note
A written vowel means practically nothing in English, and if it's not the stress you might as well have written a schwa.
Examples19
Definitions4
Parts of speech2
Quick take
The name of the Latin-script letter Ə/ə.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of schwa gathered in one view.
(phonetics) An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
(phonetics, of a vowel sound, rare) To be reduced to schwa.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for schwa.
noun
The name of the Latin-script letter Ə/ə.
noun
(phonetics) An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
verb
(phonetics, of a vowel sound, rare) To be reduced to schwa.
noun
Alternative form of shva. [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.]
Example sentences
A written vowel means practically nothing in English, and if it's not the stress you might as well have written a schwa.
You haven't really eaten at Schwa until you've been there when Michael Carlson gets arrested during service.
Unstressed vowels in all dialects of English are generally reduced to schwa, not just American English.
It's conflated with schwa (the most common vowel sound in English yet has no singular representation).
In most of North America, at least, it would be something like por'trit (the second syllable is much de-emphasized, but the vowel is closer to a short i than a schwa).
I hacked up something with Asterisk to auto-dial Schwa until I got something other than the dreaded machine.
Last time I went to Schwa (over a year and a half ago) the wait was over 2 months.
), but they're still written as if they ended with a vowel (this is true for my own name too, the schwa at the end is dropped).
It's a bit longer, always morphemic version of a schwa I believe.
They use the schwa sound to represent/compress vowels.
This is actually a discussion I've had (not particularly fruitfully); schwa, being a reduced vowel, is sort of notionally only available in unstressed syllables.
Man, though, I really liked that Schwa meal.
Quote examples
Besides, there are countless precedents of English words with a mute final "e" and a schwa inserted between two consonants, e.g.
The grammticalized "have" in the modal is almost never pronounced the same way as the verb meaning "possess"; it has become a schwa-vee or often even a simple schwa (rendered as musta) in ordinary (not explicitly emphatic) speech.
Merriam-Webster seems to use schwa even for stressed syllables like "stuff".
The thread started off about rhoticism ("[...]heavy on the R's [...]"), so I guess he reinterpreted the r+schwa as longer r.
Proper noun examples
He should check out Moto, Schwa, or even Alinea; nobody is going to touch his lap.
:) I had a great meal at Schwa, and my reservation wasn't that hard to get, except that they cancelled it on me 3 times in a row.
As a restaurant customer, I think the ticketing system is great; I've gone through the process of getting an Alinea reso (if you want a real fun time in Chicago, try getting one for Schwa) and it was an opaque nightmare.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use schwa in a sentence?
A written vowel means practically nothing in English, and if it's not the stress you might as well have written a schwa.
What does schwa mean?
The name of the Latin-script letter Ə/ə.
What part of speech is schwa?
schwa is commonly used as noun, verb.