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.

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cloud nine

/ˈklaʊd ˈnaɪn/ noun

noun (idiomatic) Often in the phrase on cloud nine: a state of bliss, elation or happiness. “He was on cloud nine for days after she agreed to marry him.”
noun (idiomatic, possibly nonstandard) A state of fantastic or impractical dreaming or thinking.

Synonyms

cloud number nine seventh heaven head in the clouds bliss blissfulness walking on air

Etymology

The origin of sense 1 (“a state of bliss”) is uncertain; however, the following etymology has been suggested. (This etymology would explain the "nine" aspect, while not being the de novo origin of the "cloud" aspect; the extension of the meterological idea to an emotional valence would not have been a de novo development, as the association of clouds with dreaminess long predates the 1890s.)
* The first edition of the International Cloud Atlas (1896), which defined ten types of cloud, described the ninth type as the cumulonimbus which rises to 10 km (6.2 miles), the highest a cloud can be.
Compare cloud seven (“state of complete happiness or euphoria”), which may have originated from confusion of cloud nine with seventh heaven.
Sense 2 (“a state of fantastic or impractical dreaming or thinking”) may be due to a confusion between sense 1 and the phrase head in the clouds.

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