Top 20+ Longest Words Without Vowels For Writers

Before you start your next game of Scrabble, wow your friends with your knowledge of English by learning the longest words without vowels you can spell.

If you have ever played a game of Scrabble, you know how valuable vowels can be. Unfortunately, you can often end up with a hand with none of these valuable letters, so how can you make words? Thankfully, there are words you can incorporate into your gameplay that do not use vowels. The longer these words are, the more valuable they are to you in the game.

You can get quite a few points when you know long words, and if those words don’t have vowels, you can incorporate them into your game a little more easily because those vowel tiles can be hard to get. Remember that the letter y can be a tricky part of these words. While it is technically a consonant, it can make vowel sounds. Thus, many of the words on this list contain vowel sounds; they use a y to spell those sounds.

What Are Words Without Vowels?

Most words in the English language have vowels in them. This is because vowels are necessary to break up the harder consonant sounds in spoken English. In fact, without vowel sounds, it would be nearly impossible to say any English words. Yet, as with most spelling and grammar rules in English, some words are spelled without the traditional vowels. English has so many words that are not spelled traditionally because of how the language developed.

English is a melting pot of different languages, and many words come directly from other languages or are derivatives of words from other tongues which do not have the same rules about vowel usage. Some of them do not follow traditional English spelling and pronunciation. While most English words have the vowels a, e, i, o, and u in them, some do not.

So what is the longest word without vowels in the English language? The longest words are

Twndyllyng	Phpht
Nymphly	Psych
Tsk-tsk	Pygmy
Glycyl	Shyly
Rhythm	Slyly
Sphynx	Synch
Spryly	Tryst
Syzygy	Wryly
Crypt

Keeping these in your back pocket will make you a more successful game player, and they may help you sound more intelligent when you talk to others, too.

Here is a closer look at these 20 words you can make without using vowels.

Eleven Letter Words Without Vowels

The longest word in the English language with no vowels is eleven letters long if you exclude plurals. Add an s to make it plural, and you have a twelve-letter word. Though it is rarely used and is of Welsh origins, it is in the Oxford English Dictionary, so it counts. In addition, it contains the letter y, which sometimes makes a vowel sound, but technically is not a vowel by most linguists, so it counts.

1. Twyndyllyng

• The mother was hoping for a twyndyllyngs pregnancy but had to wait until her ultrasound to find out.

Seven-Letter Words Without Vowels

The next longest word in English that does not use vowels has seven letters, as long as you are not counting plurals. Again, there is only one word that falls into this category. Because it is an adverb, this particular word does not have a plural counterpart, but it would still bring quite a few points on a friendly game of Scrabble.

2. Nymphly

• She nymphly traipsed around the forest in your moccasins.

Six-Letter Words Without Vowels

Several six-letter words in English are spelled without vowel letters. Some have y, but a few have no vowel-type letters at all. Some are words that emulate sounds made with the mouth, others are scientific terms, and others are words used regularly in everyday language.

3. Tsk-tsk

• She said, “tsk-tsk” to scold the small child, even though secretly she was amused by his antics.

4. Glycyl

• The glycyl radical enzymes are responsible for complex reactions within the genome.

5. Rhythm

• You got the melody notes right, but the rhythm is all wrong, so let’s try that again.

6. Sphynx

• We took a vacation to see the sphynx, which was as beautiful as we expected but larger than we anticipated.

7. Spryly

• Gigi moved so spryly that I was shocked when she told us she was 75.

8. Syzygy

• Syzygy is a fancy word for an eclipse, the rare phenomenon where the moon comes between the earth and the sun.

Five-Letter Words Without Vowels

Though they may not be the longest, some five-letter words do not use vowels. If you are a fan of the game Wordle, which often uses five-letter words, these are good words to keep in the back of your mind. This is the largest category of long English words without vowels. Because these sometimes do not use y, they deserve a spot on this list because they are entirely made from consonants, no questions asked. Some are Welsh in origin and use a w to make a vowel sound, but they can still appear in English dictionaries and are worth studying.

9. Crypt

• The adventurous teenagers felt a little frightened when their hike led them to the mysterious crypt.

10. Crwth

• The crwth has a unique sound, and I enjoy listening to recordings of the instrument.

11. Cwtch

• Please put your jacket in the cwtch with your name at the back of the classroom.

12. Dryly

• He licked his lips dryly while waiting for the waiter to bring water.

13. Glyph

• Have you ever considered the impact glyphs make on building design?

14. Gypsy

• Have you ever considered the impact glyphs make on building design?

15. Lymph

• Lymph is a green fluid that contains white blood cells and helps the immune system.

16. Lynch

• The lynch mob was common in the deep south before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s day.

17. Myrrh

• In the Christmas story, the three wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh gifts.

18. Phpht

• Did you hear the indignant “phpht” the customer said when we explained why they couldn’t get the sale price?

19. Psych

• The psych evaluation did not find any problems, so you can start the job on Monday if you are ready.

20. Pygmy

• The anthropologist studied the pygmy tribe to see how their height affected societal interactions.

21. Shyly

• Shyly, the little boy took the cookie from the hand of the kind baker.

22. Slyly

• They slyly snuck into the movie to see the second half of the show after the movie they paid for finished.

23. Synch

• The Bluetooth speaker had to synch to the phone before they could hear the music.

24. Tryst

• The lovers had a tryst when their parents said they could no longer see one another.

25. Wryly

• He looked at her wryly, taking in her ripped jeans and dirty shirt.