I. ˈsiləbəl noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English sillable, from Middle French sillabe, from Latin syllaba, from Greek syllabē, from syllambanein to gather together, put together, combine in pronunciation, from syn- + lambanein to take, grasp — more at latch
1. : a unit of spoken language that is next bigger than a speech sound and consists of one or more vowel sounds alone (as ī and ə in īleftindēə I left India ) or of a syllabic consonant alone (as ə n in wīd ə n widen ) or of either accompanied by one or more consonant sounds preceding or following (as stāt in stātmənt statement or ə nd in wīd ə nd widened
2. : one or more letters (as syl, la, and ble ) in a word (as syl.la.ble ) usually set off from the rest of the word by a centered dot or a hyphen and roughly but often not exactly corresponding to the syllables of spoken language and treated as helps to the ascertainment of pronunciation or as markers of places where a word may be hyphenated at the end of a written or printed line
3. : a monosyllabic word considered with reference to its meaning
those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin — William Cowper
4. : the smallest conceivable expression or unit of something : jot
kept a diary for years, but never entered in it a syllable that had to do with his official life — H.G.Dwight
towns of gold can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit — R.W.Emerson
as if the past had resolved itself into this tiny esoteric pattern and that I could grasp it in an instant of time, and interpret its every single syllable as briefly — Walter de la Mare
5.
a. : syllable name
b. : sol-fa syllables
to sing by syllable
II. transitive verb
( syllabled ; syllabled ; syllabling -b(ə)liŋ ; syllables )
1. : to give a number or arrangement of syllables to (a word or verse)
some uncouth poet scarcely able to syllable his words — Virginia Woolf
long unbroken sentences … filled with poly syllabled abstract nouns — Times Literary Supplement
2. : to express or utter in or as if in syllables
tongues that syllable men's names — John Milton
where the birds talked with words too sad and strange to syllable — J.C.Ransom