emvowel

• envowel

Coined by Henry Fielding (1707-1754) as a jocular alteration of embowel (“disembowel”).

• IPA^(key): /ɪmˈvaʊ.əl/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -aʊəl

emvowel (third-person singular simple present emvowels, present participle emvowelling, simple past and past participle emvowelled)

1. (dated, humorous) To replace a portion of a person's name with a dash in printing, in order to avoid libel.
   • 1747 December, Henry Fielding, The Gentleman's Magazine, London, page 579, column 2:

     And as for all the words I embowel, or rather emvowel, I will never ſo mangle them, but they ſhall be all as well known as if they retained every vowel in them.

   • 1751, The Student: Or, The Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, Oxford, page 257:

     Finally, to judge whether ſhe is abſolutely cried up as a BEAUTY, we muſt conſult the wooden regiſters, the benches in the public walks, and the window-panes in coffee-houſes and taverns; where you'll be ſure to ſee her name in acroſticks, or either emvowel'd, or written in full length, accompanied with the moſt emphatical endearing expreſſions.

   • 1752 January 16, Bonnell Thornton, Have At You All: or, The Drury-Lane Journal, London, page 13:

     I ſhall not encroach on the Old Baily Patriot in his priviledge of emvowelling, daſhing, aſterizing, and italicizing.

   • 1762 November, The London Magazine: or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, London, page 590, column 2:

     I reprobate the bold practice of licentiouly printing names at full length, without as much as modeſtly embowelling, or rather emvowelling them, or pleaſantly holding their owners in greater deriſion by a contemptuous alteration of them[.]

   • 1763 February, Robert Lloyd, The St. James's Magazine, London: W. Flexney, page 374:

     Yes—it ſtands forth to public view,
     Within, without, on white, on blue,
     In proper, tall, gigantic Letters,
     Not daſh'd—emvowell'd—like my betters.

   • 1775, Richard Wynne, “Appendix”, in An Universal Grammar, London, page 122:

     But this barbarous custom of emvowelling words, is now quite exploded, in prose at least, by the best authors.

   • 1915, Gerard Edward Jensen, “Introduction”, in The Covent Garden Journal, volume I, New Haven: Yale University Press, page 69:

     Fielding is let off lightly with a running comment on his misspellings and other peculiarities of style—deliberate punning and emvoweling.