noun a small part of a sentence or discourse; anything concise or short; a particle.
2. syllable ·vt to pronounce the syllables of; to utter; to articulate.
3. syllable ·noun 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.
4. syllable ·noun 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 reenforcement, of the stress as to give the feeling of separate impulses. ·see guide to pronunciation, /275.