What is a word without a vowel?
In English, there can be no actual words without vowels – of course, we are not counting abbreviations or acronyms as words. This is because the vowels open up the mouth to release air, while consonants close off the air flow by definition. So a word without vowels can literally not be spoken. Of course, there are some onomatopoeic creations like bzzz, psst, and grrr, but these are sounds, and not really words. Thanks for remembering that Y is sometimes a vowel, along with W (seen in Welsh) and N (seen in “nth). So for all of you folks listing Welsh words, the W is the VOWEL. There are NO words in English without a vowel.
In English, every word must contain at least one spoken vowel in its pronunciation. However, there are a few words that do not contain a vowel letter in their written form. Traditionally, the following five letters have been regarded as vowel letters, because both in English and in most other languages they typically represent vowel sounds: a, e, i, o, u. However, in English, y has a double role, as it can sometimes represent a consonant (IPA [j]), as in yes, and sometimes a vowel, as in fly.
English words must have a vowel. The only exception is the word Nth, which rhymes with tenth and means (according to Webster) of the indefinitely large or small quantity represented by n. It is used in the context “to the nth degree”. But it is questionable as to whether this is a real word, despite its presence in the dictionary. Rhythm does not count because y is a vowel in that context (it makes the sound of “i” in “it”).
