schwa

IPA: ʃwʌ

(phonetics) An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
The character ə.
Alternative form of shva [A Hebrew nikud vowel sign written as two vertical dots beneath a letter, in Israeli Hebrew indicating either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel.]

Examples of "schwa" in Sentences

There's nae fuckin schwa in the Roman alfabet so ye cannae ever really be akyirit, ye ken?
This neutral vowel phoneme known as schwa is produced by the vibration of the vocal cords alone, with the tongue in a neutral position and requiring a minimal amount of articulatory effort.
In the science of language that calls itself linguistics, a schwa is a neutral vowel sound, its symbol an inverted e, pronounced uh and usually unstressed, as the a in ago or the i in easily.
You referred to the vowel in the first syllable of the “PEH-duh-file” pronunciation as being a schwa, but the schwa is a sound that occurs only in unaccented syllables, like the first syllable of “about.”
A correspondent from Brazil writes to ask about the origins of the phonetics term schwa, used to identify, for example, the English mid-central vowel sound of unstressed the or the final vowel in sofa, and written with an inverted e.