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

jiffy

/ˈd͡ʒɪ.fi/ noun

Forms jiffies giffy

  1. noun (colloquial) A very short, unspecified length of time. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
  2. noun (computing) A unit of time defined by the frequency of its basic timer – historically, and by convention, 0.01 of a second, but some computer operating systems use other values.
  3. noun (electronics) The length of an alternating current power cycle (1/60 or 1/50 of a second).
  4. noun (physics) The time taken for light to travel a specified distance in a vacuum, usually one centimetre (approximately 33.3564 picoseconds), but sometimes one foot or the width of a nucleon.

Synonyms

instant jiff mo sec tick bat of an eye bit blink of an eye crack eyeblink flash glimpse half a mo jot minute moment New York minute New York second no time second heartbeat split second trice twinkling wink

Etymology

Origin unknown; said to have been thieves’ cant for “lightning”. Also formerly written "giffy", to which a connection with gliff has been proposed. As a kind of envelope, a genericization of Jiffy bag.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A moment; an instant; as, I will be ready in a jiffy. [Colloq.]

Etymology [Perh. corrupt. fr. gliff.]

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