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

x

/ɛks/ numeral, conjunction, proper noun, noun, adjective

Forms Xes Xs Xing Xed

  1. numeral (sometimes humorous) An unknown or unspecified number of.
  2. conjunction (fandom slang) Used between the names of two characters to denote a ship, particularly in anime, manga, and video games.
  3. conjunction (music) Used in place of and in artist collaborations. “Taska Black x DROELOE, Steve Aoki x Lauren Jauregui, etc.”
  4. numeral An unknown quantity or unknown value. “Let X represent the forecast traffic flow in 20 years’ time.”
  5. proper noun A placeholder for an unknown, suppressed or hypothetical name. “The woman known until now as Witness X has been unmasked after a court ruling.”
  6. proper noun (anthroponymy, politics) A surname, used by those who have had their identity or heritage, including their proper ancestral names, erased or forgotten. “Malcolm X”
  7. proper noun (social media) An online social media network, formerly known as Twitter.
  8. noun Any mark that looks like that letter, such as a mark made by a person who cannot read or write in lieu of a signature.
  9. noun (lacrosse) The spot behind the goal.
  10. adjective Intersex or non-binary (in passports and identification documents).
  11. noun (slang) Ecstasy, a particular street drug.
  12. adjective (UK film certificate, dated) Suitable only for those aged sixteen or (later) eighteen years and over.
  13. adjective (originally movie rating) Obscene; adult; pornographic; XXX.
  14. proper noun (informal) Christ
  15. noun Cross, crossing. “Kennington via Charing X”
  16. proper noun (Unix, computing) The X Window System, a windowing system for bitmap displays commonly used in Unix-like systems.

Synonyms

X11 ten 10 tenner decade ex Adam ecstasy XTC go disco biscuit cristal hug drug

Etymology

Introduced by René Descartes in the context of mathematical notation, but has since widened to other contexts.

Presumably by abbreviation of the pronunciation of ecstasy.

From Christ by abbreviation, orthographic borrowing from Ancient Greek Χ (Kh, letter chi), from Χριστός (Khristós, “Christ”).

From cross, due to the X symbol being a cross saltire.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “x”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details