There’s something entertaining about playing with words. Whether it’s making palindromes, discovering the longest word or just playing Scrabble, humans have a natural interest in language. Even something as simple as discovering English words with all 5 vowels in them can serve as an interesting piece of trivia, though it’s not as rare as you might think.
Here, we’ve collected some notable words that feature all of the vowels in English. Instead of a comprehensive list — there are just too many, especially when you include technical terminology — we’ve chosen to focus on just the most interesting.
The 5 Most Notable English Words With All 5 Vowels
The Shortest English Word With All Five Vowels: Sequoia
There are a few seven-letter words in the dictionary that have all five vowels — eulogia, miaoued, suoidea, etc. — but the only one that could be considered common is “sequoia,” the name for a tree that grows in the Sierra Nevada. This word comes with a bonus language fact, too: it comes from Sequoyah, a Native American who is credited as the first person to ever single-handedly create a written language. He did it for his native language, Cherokee.
Or Maybe It’s This One: Eunoia
Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this word before; it’s not particularly common. It’s descended from Greek, and it refers to a feeling of goodwill, particularly that of an audience toward a speaker. Its main claim to fame, though, is that it is the only six-letter word that has all five of the main vowels in English.
And An Even Shorter One: Iouea
This word, consisting only of vowels, is the name of a genus of fossil sponges. It can technically count as one of the English words with all 5 vowels in them, but is certainly not a word you’ll run into in your day-to-day life.
Shortest Word With All Five Vowels In Order: Aerious
Sure, having all the vowels is one thing, but what about ordering them alphabetically? That can be done in the seven-letter “aerious.” It’s considered obsolete in English, sure, but it counts, and is an old word for things referring to the air.
Shortest Word With All Six Vowels In Order: Facetiously
If you read the intro to this article and took issue with us saying that there are five vowels in the language, then this entry is for you. The shortest word that features all five vowels and the “sometimes y” is “facetiously,” which refers to the sense of humor when someone responds to a serious topic with something inappropriate (it’s sometimes used interchangeably with “sarcastically,” but they’re not exactly the same). Not only does it have all six vowels; it has all of them in alphabetical order, making it a particularly interesting word.
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