overwordExplorer
FINNISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tavu.

syllable

4 characters2 syllables approx.Suomi language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈtɑʋu/[ˈt̪ɑ̝ʋu]
  1. syllable

  2. byte

Where this word comes from

tavata (“to spell”) + -u. Coined by Finnish physician and philologist Elias Lönnrot in 1835, originally as tavuu (with -uu) or tavut (with -ut); the form tavu is from 1847 (also by Lönnrot). The computing sense is a later development from the original sense “syllable” in the 20th century, perhaps because multiple bytes make up a 'word'.

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tavu studiotavu workshello, tavu

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.