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

cumber

/ˈkʌmbə/ verb, noun

Also a form of cucumber

Forms cumbers cumbering cumbered cumbre 'cumber

  1. verb (transitive, dated) To slow down; to hinder; to burden; to encumber.
  2. noun (obsolete) Trouble, distress.
  3. noun Something that encumbers; a hindrance, a burden.

Synonyms

encumber restrain constrain

Etymology

From Middle English combren, aphetic form of acombren or encombren, borrowed from Old French encombrer, ultimately either from Latin cumulus or Proto-Celtic *kombereti (“to bring together”), from *kom- + *bereti (“to bear”). Cognate with German kümmern (“to take care of”).

From Middle English komber, kumbre, cumbre, combre (“distress; destruction”). Used in 14th century Middle English in the very scarcely attested “destruction” sense but not in common use until the 16th century; at first chiefly Scots, where it is also spelled cummer. Further etymology is uncertain, the term is either:
* an aphetic form of encomber, encumbir, encumbre (“trouble; misfortune; harm, ruin”), itself from Old French encombre (“a hindrance, difficulty”), see Etymology 1 and French encombrer for further etymology; or,
* cognate with Middle High German kumber (German Kummer), Middle Low German kummer, and Dutch kommer with which it strikingly shares the meaning “trouble, distress”, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *kumbr (“burden, trouble, sorrow”); or,
* a deverbal from cumber.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To rest upon as a troublesome or useless weight or load; to be burdensome or oppressive to; to hinder or embarrass in attaining an object, to obstruct or occupy uselessly; to embarrass; to trouble.
  2. noun Trouble; embarrassment; distress. [Obs.] [Written also comber.]

Etymology [OE. combren, cumbren,OF. combrer to hinder, from LL. cumbrus a heap, fr. L. cumulus; cf. Skr. to increase, grow strong. Cf. Cumulate.]

Etymology [Cf. encombre hindrance, impediment. See Cuber,v.]

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