a mora with a semivowel onglide, such as や (ya) or わ (wa) · a semivowel
köken: Compound of 半(はん) (han-, “semi-”) + 母音(ぼいん) (boin, “vowel”). First cited to a text from 1912 with the now-obsolete reading of hanboon. The reading appears to have shifted from hanboon to hanboin by 1922.
köken: From sēmi- + vōcālis. Calque of Ancient Greek ἡμῐ́φωνος (hēmĭ́phōnos). The substantivized noun is an ellipsis of littera sēmivōcālis f (“semivocal letter”).
köken: From mala- + patinig (“vowel”), literally “vowellike”, a calque of English semivowel. Coined by Lope K. Santos in the Balarilà ng Wikang Pambansá (Grammar of the National Language), published in 1939. This term was introduced to translate English semivowel.