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

cower

UK /ˈkaʊə/ · US /ˈkaʊɚ/ verb

Forms cowers cowering cowered

  1. verb (intransitive) To crouch or cringe, or to avoid or shy away from something, in fear. “He'd be useless in war. He'd just cower in his bunker until the enemy came in and shot him, or until the war was over.”
  2. verb (intransitive, archaic) To crouch in general.
  3. verb (transitive) To cause to cower; to frighten into submission.
  4. verb (intransitive, figuratively) To be a coward; to hide away or refuse to face opposition due to fear.
  5. verb (obsolete, transitive) To cherish with care.

Synonyms

huddle fawn crawl creep cringe grovel

Etymology

From Middle English couren, cowre, from Middle Low German kûren (“to lie in wait; linger”) or from North Germanic (Icelandic kúra (“to doze”)); according to Pokorny, all are ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to curve, bend”), see also Proto-Germanic *kuddô (“shell, pod”).
Cognate with German kauern (“to squat”), Dutch koeren (“to keep watch (in a cowered position)”), Serbo-Croatian kutriti (“to lie in a bent position”), Swedish kura (“huddle, cower”). Unrelated to coward, which is of Latin origin.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To stoop by bending the knees; to crouch; to squat; hence, to quail; to sink through fear.
  2. verb To cherish with care. [Obs.]

Etymology [Cf. Icel. kera to doze, liequiet, Sw. kura, Dan. kure, G. kauern to cower, W. cwrian.]

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

Sanskrit

Sanskrit dictionary entries whose meaning includes “cower” (best matches first).