I have previously blogged "EUNOIA" (the shortest word using all five).
And I knew about "ABSTEMIOUS" and "FACETIOUS" (use all five in order), and "SEQUOIA" (another short one), but when I did a recent Harper's word puzzle I learned several more - SUBCONTINENTAL, MIAOUED, CAULIFLOWER, and EDUCATION (there is something rather satisfying about that last one).
I am sure there are tons more among the long words (a quick online search reveals MISCELLANEOUS), but the shorter ones are kind of fun to know.
Posted for other English majors, cruciverbalists, and general language enthusiasts. Anyone want to offer examples from other languages?
"facetiously" has the added benefit of including the other letter that is used as a vowel in standard English -- and still in alphabetical order.
ReplyDeleteWhy no Y ?
ReplyDeleteIf fry is a word then Y must be a vowel.
And so, is cauliflowery not an apt description of a taste or a boxer's ear, AND a word containing all 6 vowels ?
Re "fry" I would reply "hmpf" (or "hmmpf" as a variant)
DeleteAnd sometimes "Y".
ReplyDeleteAs an individual who utilizes the letter Y as the primary vowel in his given name. I object to the rampant vowelism latent in this post
In French, OISEAU (bird) uses all five vowels, and not one with it basic pronunciation :)
ReplyDeleteoiseau ~/wazo/
Thank you, Abie. (and I found some interesting stuff on your Mastodon page) :-)
Delete% grep "a.*e.*i.*o.*u*" /usr/share/dict/words | wc
ReplyDeletetells me there are 241 words using aeiou in order. If we want y also, "facetiously" is the only example.
If we ask for aeiouy not in order, there are 37, including proper names like Byelorussia. Most of those end in ly, but not [homo,hetero]sexuality. I rather like "daguerrotyping".
Very clever. Thanks for doing the exercise for us.
Delete