Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

whelm

/ʍɛlm/ verb, noun

Forms whelms whelming whelmed

  1. verb (transitive, archaic) To bury, to cover; to engulf, to submerge.
  2. verb (transitive, obsolete) To throw (something) over a thing so as to cover it.
  3. verb (transitive, obsolete) To ruin or destroy.
  4. verb (intransitive, archaic) To overcome with emotion; to overwhelm.
  5. noun (poetic, also figuratively) A surge of water. “the whelm of the tide”
  6. noun A wooden drainpipe, a hollowed out tree trunk, turned with the cavity downwards to form an arched watercourse.
  7. verb (transitive, colloquial) To emotionally affect at an intensity in between underwhelm and overwhelm; to just satisfy or just meet expectations.

Synonyms

overwhelm whemmel overpower sweep over overcome overtake

Antonyms

unwhelm

Etymology

From Middle English whelmen (“to turn over, capsize; to invert, turn upside down”), perhaps from Old English *hwealmnian, a variant of *hwealfnian, from hwealf (“arched, concave, vaulted; an arched or vaulted ceiling”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwalb, from Proto-Germanic *hwalbą (“arch, vault”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp- (“to curve”).
The English word is cognate with Dutch welven (“to arch”), Old Saxon bihwelvian (“to cover, hide”), German wölben (“to bend, curve, arch”), Icelandic hvelfa (“to overturn”), German Walm (“a vaulted roof”), Icelandic hvolf (“vaulted ceiling”), Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, hollow, gulf”).
The noun is derived from the verb.

Back-formation from overwhelm /underwhelm, as if a base verb "whelm" described a middling intensity between under- and overwhelming.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To cover with water or other fluid; to cover by immersion in something that envelops on all sides; to overwhelm; to ingulf.
  2. verb Fig.: To cover completely, as if with water; to immerse; to overcome; as, to whelm one in sorrows. "The whelming weight of crime." J. H. Newman.

Etymology [OE. whelmen to turn over, akin to OE. whelven, AS. whelfan, hwylfan, in , , to overwhelm, cover over; akin to OS. bihwelbian, D. welven to arch, G. wölben, OHG. welben, Icel. hvelfa to overturn; cf. Gr. 1. To cover with water or other fluid; to cover by immersion in something that envelops on all sides; to overwhelm; to ingulf. She is my prize, or ocean whelm them all! Shak. The whelming billow and the faithless oar. Gay. 2. Fig.: To cover completely, as if with water; to immerse; to overcome; as, to whelm one in sorrows. "The whelming weight of crime." J. H. Newman. 3. To throw (something) over a thing so as to cover it. [Obs.]

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “whelm”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details