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

epicene

UK /ˈɛp.ɪˌsiːn/ · US /ˈɛp.əˌsin/ adjective, noun

Forms epicenes epicœne epicoene

  1. adjective (linguistics) Of or relating to a class of Greek and Latin nouns that may refer to males or females but have a fixed grammatical gender (feminine, masculine, neuter, etc.).
  2. adjective (linguistics) Of or relating to nouns or pronouns in any language that have a single form for male and female referents.
  3. adjective (by extension) Suitable for use regardless of sex; unisex.
  4. adjective (biology and figuratively) Of indeterminate sex, whether asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex; of a human face, intermediate in form between a man's face and a woman's face.
  5. adjective (by extension) Indeterminate; mixed.
  6. adjective (by extension, usually derogatory) Of a man: effeminate.
  7. noun (linguistics) An epicene word; preceded by the: the epicene words of a language as a class.
  8. noun (biology and figuratively) An epicene person, whether biologically asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex; an androgyne, a hermaphrodite.
  9. noun (by extension) A transsexual; also, a transvestite.
  10. noun (by extension, usually derogatory) An effeminate man.

Synonyms

common gynandromorphic gynandrous hermaphrodite intersex gynandromorph androgyne epicene person bisexual effeminate emasculate cissy sissified sissyish sissy

Etymology

From Late Middle English epicene, epicen, epicin, epcyn, episcen, epycen, epycene, epycyn, ypsen (“(grammar) having only one form for masculine and feminine gender, common”), from Late Latin epicoenos, epicoenus (“of a noun: applicable to either males or females”), Latin epicoenon (“noun applicable to either males or females; grammatical gender of such nouns”), from Ancient Greek ἐπίκοινος (epíkoinos, “common to many people, things, etc.; promiscuous, sluttish”) (compare γένος ἐπίκοινον (génos epíkoinon, “common gender”)), from ἐπι- (epi-, prefix meaning ‘on, upon; on top of; all over’) + κοινός (koinós, “common; general, public”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“beside, by, near, with”) + *-yós (suffix forming adjectives from noun stems)).

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective Common to both sexes; --a term applied, in grammar, to such nouns as have but one form of gender, either the masculine or feminine, to indicate animals of both sexes; as bos, for the ox and cow; sometimes applied to eunuchs and hermaphrodites.
  2. adjective Fig.: Sexless; neither one thing nor the other.

Etymology [L. epicoenus, Gr. épicène.]

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