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

hoity-toity

/ˈhɔɪtiˈtɔɪti/ noun, adjective, adverb, interjection

Forms hoity-toities hoity-toitier hoity-toitiest hoitytoity hoity toity

  1. noun (uncountable, archaic) Behaviour adopted to demonstrate one's superiority; pretentious or snobbish behaviour; airs and graces.
  2. noun (uncountable, obsolete) Flighty, giddy, or silly behaviour; also, noisy merriment.
  3. noun (countable, UK, dialectal) A young woman regarded as flighty, giddy, or silly.
  4. adjective Affected or pretentious, sometimes with the implication of displaying an air of excessive fanciness or ostentation; pompous, self-important, snobbish; often displaying a feeling of patronizing self-aggrandizing or arrogant class superiority.
  5. adjective (obsolete) Flighty, giddy, silly; also, merry in a noisy manner.
  6. adverb Flightily, giddily.
  7. adverb Merrily, in a noisy manner.
  8. interjection (dated) Expressing disapprobation or surprise at acts or words that are pompous or snobbish, or flighty.

Synonyms

affectations airs huffiness pretensions flightiness giddiness silliness frolic high jinks romping grandiose hifalutin highfalutin highfaluting la-di-da

Etymology

Probably from hoit (“to behave frivolously and thoughtlessly; to play the fool”) + -y (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having the quality of’), reduplicated with a change of the initial consonant. The noun is attested earlier than the adjective.

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective Thoughtless; giddy; flighty; also, haughty; patronizing; as, to be in hoity-toity spirits, or to assume hoity-toity airs; used also as an exclamation, denoting surprise or disapprobation, with some degree of contempt.

Etymology [From Hoit.]

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