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

widow bird

noun

Forms widow birds widowbird

  1. noun Any of several species of birds in the family Viduidae, incorporating whydahs and widow finches.
  2. noun Any of several species of birds in the genus Euplectes.

Synonyms

whydah whidah

Etymology

Compound of widow + bird. The name for the family Viduidae derives from the genus name Vidua, from post-classical Latin vidua (“widow”) for males' black plumage, which resembles the mourning clothes of a widow. Compare whydah, from Whydah, a city in the Kingdom of Dahomey, now Ouidah, Benin. The terms widow-bird and whydah-bird influenced one another due to association of one species with the city.

Webster’s 1913

  1. See Whidan bird.

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