semivowel

English Thesaurus

1. a vowellike sound that serves as a consonant (noun.communication)

hypernym	:	phone, sound, speech sound,
definition	:	(phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language (noun.communication)

hyponym	:	palatal,
definition	:	a semivowel produced with the tongue near the palate (like the initial sound in the English word `yeast') (noun.communication)