[f. VOCAL a. + -ISM.]. Cf. F. vocalisme, mod.L. vocalismus, in sense 2 b.]
1. The exercise of the voice or vocal organs in speech.
1864. Webster, Vocalism, the exercise of the vocal organs.
1866. Felton, Anc. & Mod. Gr., I. i. 11. Rough and violent intonations embodied in mimetic vocalism the harsh, the painful, the agitating passions.
1873. F. Hall, Mod. Eng., 19. We should now be talking in monosyllables, and eking out our scantiness of vocalism by nods, shrugs, winks, and other resources of pantomime.
b. The art of exercising the voice in singing.
1884. Sala, Journ. due South, I. xx. (1887), 255. Italian vocalism seems to me to be extremely beautiful everywhere save in Italy itself, where singing out of tune … seem[s] to be the rule.
1889. Daily News, 28 June, 2/3. A professor of vocalism to the family of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
1903. Sat. Rev., 16 May, 614/2. When vocalism is wanted … her vocal art is sufficient for the purpose.
2. A vocal sound or articulation.
1873. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 2), § 126. In the schools, children are allowed to utter such thick-lipped vocalisms as Mosos.
b. A system of vowels; the use of vowels.
1873. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 2), § 109. There is one dialect of our family which is distinguished for such a vocalism, and that is Mœso-Gothic.
1891. A. L. Mayhew, O. E. Phonology, Pref. p. v. The subject of my book is the Vocalism and Consonantism of Old English or Anglo-Saxon.
