short a
(linguistics, especially, UK) The vowel sound in the English words grass and castle when pronounced with a near-open front unrounded vowel (); associated with northern England accents.
Definitions
(linguistics, especially, UK) The vowel sound in the English words grass and castle when pronounced with a near-open front unrounded vowel (); associated with northern England accents.
“Ubuntu 26.04 LTS dropped the Software & Updates utility from default installs and added Ubuntu Pro settings to the Security Center app. But is the setup experience any better? The short a... 🔗 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/04/enable-ubuntu-pro-security-center”
— Bluesky· May 2026
Comments
(phonics) The vowel sound in the English words cat and rack, usually represented by or . (The presence of a short vowel is sometimes signaled in spelling by the doubling of a consonant after it, such as in batting as contrasted with bating.).
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🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
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Semantically related
- long a82%
(linguistics, especially, UK) The vowel sound in the English words bath and castle when pronounced with an open back unrounded vowel (); associated with southern England accents.
- long a60%
(phonics) The vowel sound in the words game and cake; . silent e]] that follows it, as in the examples here, or by the fact that a subsequent consonant is single rather than doubled, as for example in gaming versus gamming).
- abisselfa54%
(obsolete, colloquial, US, education) The letter A when it stands alone within a word, not forming part of a diphthong, etc.
- grasser54%
(British, slang) A grass; an informer.