Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iː	see	ɪ	sit	e / ɛ	bed	æ	cat
ɑː	father	ɒ	hot (UK)	ɔː	law	ʊ	put
uː	too	ʌ	cup	ɜː	bird	ə	about
eɪ	day	aɪ	my	ɔɪ	boy	aʊ	now
əʊ / oʊ	go (UK / US)	ɪə	near	eə	hair	ʊə	tour

Consonants that look unusual

θ	thin	ð	this	ʃ	she	ʒ	measure
tʃ	church	dʒ	judge	ŋ	sing	j	yes

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

chough

/t͡ʃʌf/ noun

Forms choughs

noun Either of two species of bird of the genus Pyrrhocorax in the crow family Corvidae that breed mainly in high mountains and on coastal sea cliffs of Eurasia.
noun The white-winged chough, of genus Corcorax in the Australian mud-nest builders family, Corcoracidae, that inhabits dry woodlands.

Synonyms

hermit-crow

Etymology

From Middle English choughe, choȝe, coo, cheo, from Old English ċēo (“a bird of the genus Corvus, a jay, crow, jackdaw, chough”) and ċeahhe (“a daw”), both from Proto-West Germanic *kahu (“jackdaw, crow”), from imitative Proto-Indo-European *gewH- (“to crow, caw, shout”). Cognate with Scots kae (“jackdaw”), West Frisian ka (“jackdaw”), Dutch kauw (“jackdaw, daw, chough”), Swedish kaja (“jackdaw”).

Webster’s 1913

noun A bird of the Crow family (Fregilus graculus) of Europe. It is of a black color, with a long, slender, curved bill and red legs; --also called chauk, chauk-daw, chocard, Cornish chough, red-legged crow. The name is also applied to several allied birds, as the Alpine chough. Cornish chough (Her.), a bird represented black, with red feet, and beak; --called also aylet and sea swallow.

Etymology [OE. choughe, kowe (and cf. OE. ca), fr. AS. ceó; cf. also D. kauw, OHG. chaha; perh. akin to E. caw. *22. Cf. Caddow.]

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