There are many words that feature all five regular vowels in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious, adventitious, facetious. One of the shortest, at eight letters, is caesious. Considering y as a vowel, the suffix -ly can be added to a number of these words; thus the shortest word containing six unique vowels in alphabetical order is facetiously (11 letters).

Subcontinental and uncomplimentary are common words having the five vowels in reverse order. One of the shortest such words, at eight letters, is Muroidea, a superfamily of rodents.