Words without vowels (a, e, i, o, u) in English do exist, though they are relatively rare and often contain the letter "y," which can function as a vowel. Some words truly have no traditional vowels and are mostly onomatopoeic, abbreviations, or loanwords. Examples include:
- Common 3- to 5-letter words with no traditional vowels but with "y" acting as a vowel: fly, cry, hymn, myth, lymph, rhythm, pygmy.
- Words without vowels and even without "y": cwm (a Welsh word meaning a valley hollow), crwth (a Welsh word for an ancient stringed instrument), nth (used to denote an indefinite ordinal number), shh (an onomatopoeia for silence), psst (an attention-getting sound), grrr (an expression of growling or annoyance), hmmm (an expression of thinking or hesitation).
- Some of these words are loanwords from Welsh or are onomatopoeic expressions that do not include vowel letters but are pronounced using vowel sounds represented by consonants in English.
Many of these words are useful in word games like Scrabble or Wordle and expand the understanding of vowel-less words in English.
