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

Boston

UK /ˈbɒstən/ · US /ˈbɔstən/ proper noun, noun

Forms Bostons

  1. proper noun A town and borough in Lincolnshire, England (OS grid ref TF3244).
  2. proper noun The capital and largest city of Massachusetts, the informal capital of New England, and the county seat of Suffolk County.
  3. proper noun (metonymic) The Massachusetts government.
  4. proper noun An inactive township in Madison County, Arkansas.
  5. proper noun A township in Washington County, Arkansas.
  6. proper noun A city in Georgia; named for Thomas M. Boston, who found a medicinal spring near the town site.
  7. proper noun A township and town therein, in Wayne County, Indiana; named for the city in Massachusetts.
  8. proper noun A neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky.
  9. noun (card games) In the card game spades, a bid of all 13 tricks.
  10. noun A Boston lettuce.

Synonyms

Beantown Hub of the Universe Bean Town capital of Massachusetts

Etymology

The US city is named after the English town (from which several prominent colonists had come), which itself is sometimes said to be named as a contraction of Botolph's town or Botolph's stone (the name Botolph itself coming from Old English Botwulf, from boda + wulf). However, this is uncertain.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A game at cards, played by four persons, with two packs of fifty-two cards each; --said to be so called from Boston, Massachusetts, and to have been invented by officers of the French army in America during the Revolutionary war.

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