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

hamstring

/ˈhæmstɹɪŋ/ noun, verb

Forms hamstrings hamstringing hamstrung hamstringed

  1. noun (anatomy) One of the great tendons situated in each side of the ham, or space back of the knee, and connected with the muscles of the back of the thigh.
  2. noun (informal) The biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus muscles.
  3. verb (transitive) To lame or disable by cutting the tendons of the ham or knee; to hough.
  4. verb (transitive, figurative) To cripple; to incapacitate; to disable.

Synonyms

hams hammy hammie hock hough hox cripple incapacitate disable hamstring tendon

Etymology

From ham (“region back of the knee joint”) + string.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun One of the great tendons situated in each side of the ham, or space back of the knee, and connected with the muscles of the back of the thigh.
  2. verb To lame or disable by cutting the tendons of the ham or knee; to hough; hence, to cripple; to incapacitate; to disable.

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