Crossword clues for vocable
vocable
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Vocable \Vo"ca*ble\, n. [L. vocabulum an appellation, designation, name, fr. vocare to call, fr. vox, vocis, a voice, a word: cf. F. vocable. See Voice.] A word; a term; a name; specifically, a word considered as composed of certain sounds or letters, without regard to its meaning.
Swamped near to drowning in a tide of ingenious
vocables.
--Carlyle.
Wiktionary
a. (context linguistics English) able to be uttered. n. 1 (context linguistics English) A word or utterance, especially with reference to its form rather than its meaning. 2 (context music English) A syllable or sound without specific meaning, used together with or in place of actual words in a song.
WordNet
n. a word that is spoken aloud [syn: spoken word]
Wikipedia
In the broadest sense of the word, a vocable is any meaningful sound uttered by people, such as a word or term, that is fixed by their language and culture. However, use in the broad sense is archaic. The term is currently used for utterances which are not considered words, such as the English vocables of assent and denial, uh-huh and uh-uh , or the vocable of error, uh-oh .
Such non-lexical vocables are often used in music, for example la la la or dum dee dum, or in magical incantations, such as abra-cadabra. Many Native American songs consist entirely of vocables; this may be due to both phonetic substitution to increase the resonance of the song, and to the trade of songs between nations speaking different languages.
Vocables are common as pause fillers, such as um and er in English, where they have little formal meaning and are rarely purposeful.
Pseudowords that mimic the structure of real words are used in experiments in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, for example the nonsense syllables introduced by Hermann Ebbinghaus.
The proto-words of infants, which are meaningful but do not correspond to words of adult speech, are also sometimes called vocables.
Usage examples of "vocable".
As usual, two or three loafers were hanging about here, exchanging blasphemies and filthy vocables, but, even if they recognised him, there was not much fear of their giving assistance to the police.
I endow you with this instrument which relates all possible vocables to every conceivable system of meaning.
The boy showed some recollection of the lectures of his queen, but he had not the vocables for resistance to an imperative senior at work upon sneaking inclinations.
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.
German lady kept smiling across the table, and trying detached vocables of their respective tongues upon each other.
As usual, two or three loafers were hanging about here, exchanging blasphemies and filthy vocables, but, even if they recognised him, there was not much fear of their giving assistance to the police.
But some of the vocables teased me with a vague sense of familiarity, though I could not define or aline this familiarity at the moment.