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

crucial

/ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/ adjective

  1. adjective Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital. “The battle of Tali-Ihantala in 1944 is one of the crucial moments in the history of Finland.”
  2. adjective (archaic) Cruciform or cruciate; cross-shaped.
  3. adjective (slang, especially Jamaica, Bermuda) Very good; excellent; particularly applied to reggae music. “Delbert Wilkins is the most crucial pirate radio DJ in Brixton.”

Synonyms

big central consequential critical epochful essential extraordinary fateful fatefraught fatesome heavy pivotal high on the totem pole historic innegligible key life-or-death meaningful necessary noted important all-important all important of the essence

Antonyms

noncrucial

Etymology

1706, from French crucial, a medical term for ligaments of the knee (which cross each other), from Latin crux, crucis (“cross”) (English crux), from the Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, to bend”).
The meaning “decisive, critical” is extended from a logical term, Instantias Crucis, adopted by Francis Bacon in his influential Novum Organum (1620); the notion is of cross fingerboard signposts at forking roads, thus a requirement to choose.

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective Having the form of a cross; appertaining to a cross; cruciform; intersecting; as, crucial ligaments; a crucial incision.
  2. adjective Severe; trying or searching, as if bringing to the cross; decisive; as, a crucial test.

Etymology [F. crucial, fr. L. crux, crucis, cross, torture. See Cross.]

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