An elementary sound, or a combination of elementary sounds, uttered together, or with a single effort or impulse of the voice, and constituting a word or a part of a word. In other terms, it is a vowel or a diphtong, either by itself or flanked by one or more consonants, the whole produced by a single impulse or utterance. One of the liquids, l, m, n, may fill the place of a vowel in a syllable. Adjoining syllables in a word or phrase need not to be marked off by a pause, but only by such an abatement and renewal, or reënforcement, of the stress as to give the feeling of separate impulses. See Guide to Pronunciation, §275.

In writing and printing, a part of a word, separated from the rest, and capable of being pronounced by a single impulse of the voice. It may or may not correspond to a syllable in the spoken language.

To pronounce the syllables of; to utter; to articulate.

in phonology, a minimal unit of sequential speech sounds comprised of a vowel sound or a vowel-consonant combination, as /a/, /ba/, /ab/, /bab/, etc. Note: In most languages, vowels play a central role in syllable formation since, by definition, a syllable always contains a vowel or vowel-like speech sound.