අ, n. The first letter of the Alphabet. It varies bightly in pronunciation, depending sometimes on the meaning or derivation and sometimes on the consonants with which it is combined. It is (1) the clear, distinct sound obtained by shortening ආ ah; (2) the sound of a in negative or miracle. In initial syllables the sound is generally the first of these; the second arises from the dropping of the voice in the unaccented syllables. It is written only when it is the initial letter of a word, but is pronounced after every consonant to which no other vowel is attached, or where it is not suppressed by the sign ්, as කරනවා, karanavā, the final vowel අ, which is long, alone being written;කරන් karan, the vowel අ after න being suppressed by the sign ්.

අෂ්ඨිය, n. metre of sixteen syllables to the line; also for අස්ථිය, which see.

ඉන්ද්‍ර වංශා, n. a poetical line of twelve syllables.

ඉන්ද්‍ර වජ්‍රා, n. a poetical line of eleven syllables.

ඒක ස්වර වාචකය, n. monosyllable.

ගායාත්‍රිය, n. sacred verse or stanza, a kind of mantra or charm; a metre of six syllables to the line.

ගුර, n. a long vowel or syllable,දීර්‍ඝප්‍රාණක්‍ෂරය.

චතුශ්‍ශබ්‍ද·වාචකය, n. tetrasyllable, quadrisyllable, ශබ්‍ද හතරකිනයුත් වචනය.

චතුස්සවර·වාචකය, n. tetrasyllable, quadrisyllable, ශබ්‍ද හතරක්ඇති වචනය.

ත·ගණය, n, a poetical foot, antibachchic, viz. — — two syllables long and the third short (marked in Sinh. — —).

ත්‍රයධිකස්වරවාචකය, n. polysyllable.

ත්‍රි·ස්වර·වචනය, or වාචකය, n. trisyllable, ශබ්ද කොඨාස තුනක් ඇති වචනය.

දණ්ඩකය, n. a poetical metre a stanza of which may consist of from 28 to 200 syllables.

ද්වී·ස්වර·වාචකය, n. dissyllable.

ධෘතිය, n. firmness, strength, සවිය; holding; a stanza of four lines of eighteen syllables each.