[1][2] The use of the term for words in the broad sense is archaic and the term is instead used for utterances which are not considered words, such as the English interjections of assent and denial, uh-huh /əˈhʌ/ and uh-uh /ˈʌʔə/, or the interjection of error, uh-oh /ˈʌʔoʊ/.
[5] Jewish Nigunim also feature wordless melodies composed entirely of vocables such as Yai nai nai or Yai dai dai.
[6] Vocables are common as pause fillers, such as um and er in English, where they have little formal meaning and are rarely purposeful.
Pseudowords that mimic the structure of real words are used in experiments in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, for example the nonsense syllables introduced by Hermann Ebbinghaus.
The proto-words of infants, which are meaningful but do not correspond to words of adult speech, are also sometimes called vocables.