1. consonant n. Any speech sound that involves a significant obstruction of the airstream in the vocal tract and that functions at the beginning or end of a syllable, either singly or in a cluster, or a letter of the alphabet representing such a speech sound. Plosive ... (From A Dictionary of Psychology in Politics & Social Sciences)
2. diphthong noun a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another (as in coin , loud , and side ). Often contrasted with monophthong , triphthong . • a digraph representing the sound ... (From The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised) in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
3. vowel n. A speech sound, almost invariably forming the main part of a syllable, that involves no significant obstruction of the airstream through the vocal tract . Various features distinguish the sound of one vowel from another, notably whether the front, ... (From A Dictionary of Psychology in Politics & Social Sciences)

 

 PHILOLOGY

    1. Love of learning and literature; the branch of knowledge that deals with the historical, linguistic, interpretative, and critical aspects of literature; literary or classical scholarship. Now chiefly U.S.
  By the late 19th cent. this general sense had become rare, but it was revived, principally in the United States, in the early 20th cent. For a fuller discussion of this, see A. Morpurgo Davies Hist. Linguistics (1998) 4 I. 22

KESTREL (‘k ^ɛstr^Il)

CRAW  : a large black bird with a loud unpleasant cry
 
[OE. cráwe f., corresp. to OS. krâia, MLG. krâge, krâe, krâ, LG. kraie, kreie, MDu. kraeye, Du. kraai, OHG. chrâwa, chrâja, chrâ, crâwa, crâ, MHG. kræe, krâwe, krâ, Ger. krähe; a WG. deriv. of the vb. crâwan, crâian to CROW, q.v.] 

CUERVO