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

gremlin

UK /ˈɡɹɛmlɪn/ · US /ˈɡɹɛmlən/ noun

Forms gremlins

  1. noun (obsolete) A contemptible person.
  2. noun An imaginary creature reputed to be mischievously inclined, for example, to damage or dismantle machinery.
  3. noun Any mysterious, unknown source of mischief or trouble, or the problem created thereby. “We rechecked everything, and we suspect gremlins in the database.”
  4. noun (surfing, skateboarding, slang) A young, inexperienced surfer or skateboarder, regarded as a nuisance.
  5. noun A person regarded as similar to a fictional gremlin, in particular: mischievous, troublesome, short, or annoying.

Synonyms

absolute zero also-ran chopped liver cipher crumb Joe Nobody little guy minnow nebbish nobody no one nothing nothingburger nonentity picayune pip-squeak pleb peon prole puny elf hob pixie pixy brownie imp

Etymology

Uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested:
* A variant of goblin.
* From Irish gruaimín (“gloomy little person”); or from Dutch gremmelen (“to soil, stain; to spoil”), or griemelen, grimmelen (“(obsolete) to abound, teem; to swarm”); but Oxford English Dictionary says there is little evidence for such derivations.
The word was popularized, especially in the United States, by the children’s novel The Gremlins (1943) by British author Roald Dahl (1916–1990), in which gremlins sabotage Royal Air Force aircraft in revenge for the destruction of their forest home to make way for an aircraft factory; the creatures later join forces with the British to fight the Nazis.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “gremlin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details