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

brit

/bɹɪt/ verb, noun, proper noun

Forms brits britting britted britt brite bris

  1. verb (transitive) To break in pieces; divide.
  2. verb (transitive) To bruise; indent.
  3. verb (intransitive) To fall out or shatter (as overripe hops or grain).
  4. verb (intransitive, dialectal) To fade away; alter.
  5. noun One of the young of herrings, sprats, etc.
  6. noun One of the tiny crustaceans, of the genus Calanus, that are part of the diet of right whales.
  7. noun brit milah
  8. noun A covenant, specifically that between God and the Jewish people.
  9. noun (informal, formerly offensive) A British person.
  10. noun A Brit Award, a prize for musicians in Britain.
  11. proper noun A short river in Dorset, England, which flows through Bridport to the sea at West Bay; in full, the River Brit.

Synonyms

Britisher Briton britt

Etymology

From Middle English brytten, brutten, from Old English brittian, bryttian (“to divide, dispense, distribute, rule over, possess, enjoy the use of”), from Proto-Germanic *brutjaną (“to break, divide”), from Proto-Germanic *breutaną (“to destroy, crush, break”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewd- (“to break”). Cognate with Icelandic brytja (“to chop up, break in pieces, slaughter”), Swedish bryta (“to break, fracture, cut off”), Danish bryde (“to break”), and outside the Germanic family with Albanian brydh (“to make crumbly, friable, soft”). Related to Old English brytta (“dispenser, giver, author, governor, prince”), Old English brēotan (“to break in pieces, hew down, demolish, destroy, kill”).

Probably from Middle English bret or birt, applied to a different kind of fish. See bret.

Borrowed from Hebrew בְּרִית.

First use appears c. 1901, either a shortening of Britisher or Briton, or a back-formation from British.

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