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

esquire

UK /ɪˈskwaɪə/ · US /ˈɛskwaɪɚ/ noun, verb

Forms esquires esquiring esquired

  1. noun (usually US, law) A lawyer.
  2. noun A male member of the gentry ranking below a knight.
  3. noun An honorific sometimes placed after a man's name.
  4. noun A gentleman who attends or escorts a lady in public.
  5. noun (archaic) A squire; a youth who in the hopes of becoming a knight attended upon a knight
  6. noun (obsolete) A shield-bearer, but also applied to other attendants.
  7. verb (transitive, obsolete) To attend, wait on, escort.
  8. noun (heraldry, rare) The lower of the halves into which a square is divided diagonally, a single gyron, but potentially larger (extending across the shield) or smaller (for example, on Mortimer's arms).

Synonyms

Esq

Etymology

From Middle English esquier, from Old French escuyer, escuier, properly, a shield-bearer (compare modern French écuyer (“shield-bearer, armor-bearer, squire of a knight, esquire, equerry, rider, horseman”)), from Late Latin scūtārius (“shieldmaker, shield-bearer”), from Latin scūtum (“shield”); probably akin to English hide (“to cover”). The term squire is the result of apheresis. Compare equerry, escutcheon.

Old French esquiere, esquierre, esquarre (“a square”) (whence modern French équerre), perhaps via a form like based esquire from bas d'esquire ("bottom of a square"), whence attested forms base (e)squire, e(s)quire bast.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun Originally, a shield-bearer or armor-bearer, an attendant on a knight; in modern times, a title of dignity next in degree below knight and above gentleman; also, a title of office and courtesy; --often shortened to squire.
  2. verb To wait on as an esquire or attendant in public; to attend.

Etymology [OF. escuyer, escuier, properly, a shield-bearer, F. écuyer shield-bearer, armor-bearer, squire of a knight, esquire, equerry, rider, horseman, LL. scutarius shield-bearer, fr. L. scutum shield, akin to Gr. to cover; prob. akin to E. hide to cover. See Hide to cover, and cf. Equerry, Escutcheon.]

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