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

dirk

UK /dɜːk/ · US /dɝk/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms dirks dirking dirked

  1. noun A long Scottish dagger with a straight blade.
  2. noun (nautical) A ceremonial dagger worn by naval or air force officers in some nations' militaries; formerly, a fighting dagger used by sailors as a boarding weapon.
  3. verb To stab with a dirk.
  4. verb (obsolete) To darken.
  5. noun (Midwestern US, dated, slang) A penis.
  6. noun (Midwestern US, dated, slang) A socially unacceptable person; an oddball.
  7. proper noun A male given name from German or Dutch, equivalent to English Derek.
  8. proper noun A surname transferred from the given name.

Synonyms

dork anaconda baloney pony bald-headed hermit banana bird birdie bobby boonga cack choad choda chode chopper cigar cock corey crank cucumber custard launcher

Etymology

Etymology unknown, apparently from Scots dirk.
First attested in 1602 as dork, in the later 17th century as durk. The spelling dirk is due to Johnson's Dictionary of 1755.
Early quotations as well as Johnson 1755 suggest that the word is of Scottish Gaelic origin, but no such Gaelic word is known. The Gaelic name for the weapon is biodag. Gaelic duirc is merely an 18th-century adoption of the English word.
A possible derivation is from the North Germanic/Scandinavian personal name Dirk (short for Diederik), which is used of lock-picking tools (but not of knives or daggers). Alternatively a corruption of Low German Dulk, Dolk (“dagger”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *dalk, from Proto-Germanic *dulkaz, *dalkaz (“knife, dagger”), related to Saterland Frisian Dolk (“dagger”), West Frisian dolk (“dagger”), Dutch dolk (“dagger”), German Dolch (“dagger”).

Unlikely not to have come from the same murky origins as dork, despite sound variation among dick-dirk-dork. Influence from der seems plausibly intermixed.

Borrowed from Dutch and North German Dirk.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A kind of dagger or poniard; --formerly much used by the Scottish Highlander. Dirk knife, a clasp knife having a large, dirklike blade.
  2. verb To stab with a dirk. Sir W. Scott.
  3. adjective Dark. [Obs.] Chaucer.
  4. verb To darken. [Obs.] Spenser.

Etymology [Ir. duirc.]

Etymology [See Dark, a.]

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