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

hunker

UK /ˈhʌŋkə/ · US /ˈhʌŋkɚ/ verb, noun, proper noun

Forms hunkers hunkering hunkered

  1. verb (intransitive) To crouch or squat close to the ground or lie down.
  2. verb (intransitive) To apply oneself to a task.
  3. noun (dated) A political conservative.
  4. proper noun A surname

Synonyms

crouch squat lie scrunch scrunch up hunker down

Etymology

Originally Scottish. Origin uncertain, but probably of Germanic origin, perhaps *hunk- a nasalised variant of *huk- (compare Scots hoonk, hounk, variants of huk, hok (“to squat, crouch”); Scots hocker (“to crouch down, hunker”)), all of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse huka (“to crouch”), from Proto-Germanic *hūkan- (“to squat”), from *hūkkan-, back-formed from the iterative *huk(k)ōn-, from Proto-Indo-European *kuk-néh₂, from *kewk- (“to curve, bend”) (also the source of high).
Probable cognates include Old Norse húka, Dutch huiken, and German hocken.

Unknown

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun Originally, a nickname for a member of the conservative section of the Democratic party in New York; hence, one opposed to progress in general; a fogy. [Political Cant, U.S.]

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