<P> In linguistics, a word is the smallest element that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning . </P> <P> This contrasts deeply with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own . A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are - s, - ness, - ly, - ing, un -, - ed). A complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes (rock - s, red - ness, quick - ly, run - ning, un-expect - ed), or more than one root in a compound (black - board, sand - box). Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (a red rock, put up with), clauses (I threw a rock), and sentences (He threw a rock too, but he missed). </P> <P> The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either . Spoken words are made up of units of sound called phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of the English alphabet . </P> <P> The difficulty of deciphering a word depends on the language . Dictionaries categorize a language's lexicon (i.e., its vocabulary) into lemmas . These can be taken as an indication of what constitutes a "word" in the opinion of the writers of that language . The most appropriate means of measuring the length of a word are by counting its syllables or morphemes . When a word has multiple definitions or multiple senses, it may result in confusion in a debate or discussion . </P>

What is the first counting number to contain all five vowels when written as a word