Meaning of vowel shift in English:

vowel shift

Translate vowel shift into Spanish


  • 1A phonetic change in a vowel or vowels.

    • ‘I can accept that cks could become x, but why the vowel shift?’
    • ‘There is more to changing fashions and vowel shifts than matters of taste or style, as a conference organised by the Institute of Ideas will examine this weekend in London.’
    • ‘Languages are constantly evolving, inventing new words, adopting new words from elsewhere, undergoing vowel shifts, and you name it.’
    1. 1.1the Great Vowel ShiftA series of changes between medieval and modern English affecting the long vowels of the standard language.
      • ‘When the Great Vowel Shift took place, the vowels rose upward, pushing the next higher vowel into the slot above.’
      • ‘English had genuine ‘long vowels’ until the Great Vowel Shift between 1400 and 1600.’
      • ‘Move the cursor over a year to see how far the Great Vowel Shift had advanced by that time!’
      • ‘In part, the explanation for the inconsistent pronunciation probably lies in the Great Vowel Shift which occurred around the 15th century.’