Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

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.

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)

-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.

countess

/ˈkaʊntɪs/ noun

Forms countesses

noun The wife of a count or earl.
noun A woman holding the rank of count or earl in her own right; a female holder of an earldom. “Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower is 24th Countess of Sutherland; her son will be the 25th Earl.”

Synonyms

From Anglo-Norman cuntesse, Old French contesse, from Latin comitissa; equivalent to count + -ess. Doublet of contessa.

noun The wife of an earl in the British peerage, or of a count in the Continental nobility; also, a lady possessed of the same dignity in her own right. See the Note under Count.

Etymology [F. comtesse. See Count a nobleman.]

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