different between vocalize vs dumbness

English

Alternative forms

• vocalise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

vocal +? -ize

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?vo?.k?.la?z/

Verb

vocalize (third-person singular simple present vocalizes, present participle vocalizing, simple past and past participle vocalized)

1. To express with the voice, to utter.
   • 1876, Walt Whitman, preface to the 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass

     Following the modern spirit, the real poems of the present, ever solidifying and expanding into the future, must vocalize the vastness and splendor and reality with which scientism has invested man and the universe,...

2. (of animals) To produce noises or calls from the throat.

   We could hear the monkeys vocalizing, though we could not see them.

3. (music) To sing without using words.
4. (linguistics) To turn a consonant into a vowel.

   In Hong Kong English, /l/ may be vocalized at the end of a syllable.

5. (linguistics, dated) To make a sound voiced rather than voiceless.
6. (linguistics) To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew)

Synonyms

• (of humans): outspeak (rarely used as a synonym of vocalize)

Derived terms

• vocalization

Portuguese

Verb

vocalize

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of vocalizar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of vocalizar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of vocalizar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of vocalizar

English

Etymology

From Middle English dombenesse, from Old English dumbnes; equivalent to dumb +? -ness. Cognate with Old Frisian dumbnisse (“folly, dumbness”).

Noun

dumbness (usually uncountable, plural dumbnesses)

1. The state of being dumb or mute: that is, of not communicating vocally, whether from selective mutism (refusal to speak) or from an inability to speak.
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, "Sissy's Job," [1]

     He was a deaf-mute. His dumbness did not seem to matter when we were boys.

2. Muteness, silence; abstention from speech.
   • 1611 Shakespeare, William [first known show: 15 May 1611; posthumous publication: 1623], Winter's Tale, Act 5, Scene 2:

     There was speech in their dumbness.

3. Show or gesture without words; pantomime; dumb-show.
   • 1623 Shakespeare, William [posthumous publication], Timon of Athens, Act 1, Scene 1:

     To the dumbness of the gesture one might interpret.

4. (informal) The quality of being stupid or foolish.

Related terms

• dumb
• dumb-show

Translations