noun A kind of syllabary (syllabic alphabet) in which a symbol or glyph representing a syllable contains parts representing a vowel and a consonant, such that symbols for syllables not including the default vowel are generated by adding a common notation to indicate the vowel that it does include.
noun A kind of syllabary (syllabic alphabet) in which a symbol or glyph representing a syllable contains parts representing a vowel and a consonant, typically such that symbols for different syllables are generated by adding, altering or removing the vowel portion, often by applying a diacritic to a stable consonant symbol.