A 

diphthong is a sound made by combining

two vowels, specifically when it starts as one
vowel sound and goes to another, like
the oy sound in oil.
Diphthong comes from the Greek
word diphthongos which means "having two sounds."
Notice the di- for "double." So diphthongs are double vowel
sounds in words like late, ride, or pout. If two vowels in a
row are the same, as in boot or beer, then it's not a
diphthong. Linguists, scholars who study language, analyze
diphthongs, which differ from language to language.
Ironically, the word diphthong has no diphthongs.

In phonetics, a vowel in which there is a noticeable sound change within the

same syllable. (In contrast, a single or simple vowel is known as
amonophthong.) Adjective: diphthongal.
The process of moving from one vowel sound to another is called gliding, and
thus another name for diphthong is gliding vowel.

Examples and Observations:

 "If you say the words hat and lip, you can hear that the vowel sound in each
is singular in nature; that is, each contains only one kind of sound. But if you
say the words out, bite, and toil, you will hear that the vowel sound of each,
though restricted to one syllable, is composed of two different kinds of sound.
These dual vowels are called diphthongs (literally, 'two voices' or 'two
sounds'), as opposed to the singular vowels, which are monophthongs ('one
voice' or 'one sound')."
(Thomas E. Murray, The Structure of English. Allyn and Bacon, 1995)
 "The vowel [a] is heard in eastern New England speech in ask, half,
laugh, and path and in some varieties of Southern speech in bye, might, tired,
and the like. It is intermediate between [ɑ] and [æ], and is usually the first
 element of a diphthong (that is, a two-vowel sequence pronounced as the
core of a single syllable) as in right and rout."
(John Algeo and Thomas Pyles, The Origins and Development of the English
Language, 5th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, 2005)

 "When you notice a regional accent, what you're chiefly noticing are the way
people pronounce their long vowels (in words like see, saw, and sue)
and diphthongs (in words like say, so, sow, soy, and sigh). 

"English has quite a few of these, and the more an accent sounds them
differently from the way you speak, the more difficulty you'll have in 'picking
up' that accent. 

"Some accents will be very close to your own, so you would have only a few
features to learn. But Birmingham and Geordie are two that--compared
with Received Pronunciation[RP]--have lots of really noticeable differences,
such as these three:
- The diphthong in words like float has a much more open onset, so that it
sounds more like RP 'flout.'
- The diphthong in words like nice begins with a back and rounded quality, so
that it sounds like 'noice.'
- The diphthong in words like loud begins with a front and higher quality, so
that it sounds more like 'le-ood.'"
(David Crystal and Ben Crystal, "Revealed: Why the Brummie Accent Is Loved
Everywhere but Britain." Daily Mail, October 3, 2014)