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

wog

UK /wɒɡ/ · US /wɔɡ/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms wogs wogging wogged

  1. noun (UK, ethnic slur, dated) A non-white person, especially one of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent.
  2. noun (Australia, originally an ethnic slur) Someone of Mediterranean descent, such as an Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Lebanese, Greek, or Maltese person.
  3. noun (Scientology, often attributive) A person who is not a Scientologist.
  4. verb (Australia, WWII slang, obsolete) (Of soldiers stationed abroad) to sell something, especially illicit or stolen goods, to the local inhabitants.
  5. verb (Australia, UK, dated) To steal.
  6. noun (nautical, slang) A pollywog, or sailor who has never crossed the Equator.
  7. noun (Australia slang) A bug, an insect.
  8. noun (Australia slang) A minor illness caused by bacteria, virus, intestinal parasite, etc.
  9. noun (Australia slang, obsolete) A toy insect in parts that can be assembled, used in fund-raising games.
  10. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

wop dago Eyetie goombah greaseball guido guinea

Etymology

The origins are not entirely clear. The term was first noted by the lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast."
The most common theory is that it is a clipping of golliwog, which was first used as the name of a black-faced doll in Florence Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. A variety of folk etymologies exist, with the most common claiming that the word is an acronym for one of either westernized, worthy, wily, or wonderful preceding “Oriental gentlemen”. Another erroneous claim is that it was used in the mid 1800s, with WOGS (meaning Working On Government Service) stencilled on the shirts of Indian workers in Egypt.
The Scientologist sense is from the usage of L. Ron Hubbard, who apparently accepted the folk etymology from “worthy Oriental gentleman” but employed the term to mean “common ordinary run-of-the-mill garden-variety humanoid”.

Clipping of polliwog (“a tadpole”).

Unknown. Probably from Etymology 2, a clipping of polliwog (“a tadpole”).

Sources: Wiktionary — from the Wiktionary entry “wog”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details