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

bolster

UK /ˈbɒlstə/ · US /ˈboʊlstɚ/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms bolsters bolstering bolstered boulster bowster bouster boster

  1. noun A large cushion or pillow, usually cylindrical in shape.
  2. noun A pad, quilt, or anything used to hinder pressure, support part of the body, or make a bandage sit easy upon a wounded part; a compress.
  3. noun (vehicles, agriculture) A small spacer located on top of the axle of horse-drawn wagons that gives the front wheels enough clearance to turn.
  4. noun A short, horizontal structural timber between a post and a beam for enlarging the bearing area of the post and/or reducing the span of the beam.
  5. noun A beam in the middle of a railway truck, supporting the body of the car.
  6. noun The perforated plate in a punching machine on which anything rests when being punched.
  7. noun The part of a knife blade that abuts upon the end of the handle.
  8. noun The metallic end of a pocketknife handle.
  9. verb (transitive, often figurative) To brace, reinforce, secure, or support.
  10. proper noun A surname from German.
  11. proper noun A ghost town in Okanogan County, Washington, United States.

Synonyms

Dutch wife hotdog pillow crosshead pillow long pillow bolster up pad

Etymology

From Middle English bolster, bolstre, from Old English bolster (“pillow”), from Proto-West Germanic *bolstr, from Proto-Germanic *bulstraz (“pillow, cushion”). Cognate with Scots bowster (“bolster”), West Frisian bulster (“mattress”), Dutch bolster (“husk, shell”), German Polster (“bolster, pillow, pad”), Swedish bolster (“soft mattress, bolster”), Icelandic bólstur (“pillow”).

Variant of German Polster.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A long pillow or cushion, used to support the head of a person lying on a bed; --generally laid under the pillows.
  2. noun A pad, quilt, or anything used to hinder pressure, support any part of the body, or make a bandage sit easy upon a wounded part; a compress.
  3. verb To support with a bolster or pillow. S. Sharp.
  4. verb To support, hold up, or maintain with difficulty or unusual effort; --often with up. To bolster baseness. Drayton.

Etymology [AS. bolster; akin to Icel. b, Sw. & Dan. bolster, OHG. bolstar, polstar, G. polster; from the same root as E. bole stem, bowl hollow vessel. Cf. Bulge, Poltroon.]

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

Sanskrit

Sanskrit dictionary entries whose meaning includes “bolster” (best matches first).