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

bonfire

UK /ˈbɒnfaɪə/ · US /ˈbɑnˌfaɪɚ/ noun, verb

Forms bonfires bonfiring bonfired burnfire bonefire boanefier bonefier beane fyre bon-fier bonfier bonfyer bone fyre bon-fire

  1. noun A large, controlled outdoor fire lit to celebrate something or as a signal.
  2. noun A fire lit outdoors to burn unwanted items; originally (historical), heretics or other offenders, or banned books; now, generally agricultural or garden waste, or rubbish.
  3. noun (figuratively) Something like a bonfire (sense 1 or 2) in heat, destructiveness, ferocity, etc.
  4. noun (obsolete) A fire lit to cremate a dead body; a funeral pyre.
  5. verb To destroy (something) by, or as if by, burning on a bonfire; (more generally) to burn or set alight.
  6. verb (ceramics) To fire (pottery) using a bonfire.
  7. verb (obsolete) To start a bonfire in (a place); to light up (a place) with a bonfire.
  8. verb (intransitive, rare) To make, or celebrate around, a bonfire.

Synonyms

bale balefire

Etymology

From Middle English bonnefyre (“a fire in which bones are burnt, bonfire”) [and other forms], by surface analysis, bone + fire. Replaced earlier Middle English bale-fyre, from Old English bǣlfȳr (see balefire). The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that bonfires, originally lit as part of midsummer celebrations, were not generally associated with the burning of bones. However, the first edition of the OED (under the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1887) stated that “for the annual midsummer ‘banefire’ or ‘bonfire’ in the burgh of Hawick [in Roxburghshire, Scotland], old bones were regularly collected and stored up, down to c. 1800”. The verb is derived from the noun. Cognate with Scots banefire (“bonfire”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A large fire built in the open air, as an expression of public joy and exultation, or for amusement.

Etymology [OE. bonefire, banefire, orig. a fire of bones; bone + fire; but cf. also Prov. E. bun a dry stalk.]

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