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

kike

/kaɪk/ noun, verb, adjective

Forms kikes kiking kiked kyke

  1. noun (US, offensive, vulgar, ethnic slur, religious slur) A Jew.
  2. noun (US, vulgar, offensive) A miser; a contemptible, stingy person, particularly a well-endowed one. “That greedy kike would not give me any money when I was starving and needed food.”
  3. noun (Judaism, obsolete, US, offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar) An Eastern European Jew.
  4. verb (transitive, offensive, uncommon) To render something more Jewish.
  5. verb (transitive, offensive, uncommon) To haggle or swindle in order to obtain a better deal from.
  6. adjective (slang, derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur, somewhat dated) Jewish.
  7. adjective (slang, derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur, somewhat dated) Of goods or manufacturing, poor-quality.

Synonyms

heeb Hymie sheeny shylock yid see Thesaurus:miser

Etymology

Originally used by German-American Jews as a slur for Eastern European Jews immigrating to the United States.
The most dominant theory is from Yiddish קײַקל (kaykl, “circle”). In the early 20th century, non-English-speaking Jews that immigrated to the United States would sign papers with a circle as opposed to a more common X, in order to avoid using a symbol reminiscent of a Christian Cross. If so, a doublet of chakra, chakram, charkha, chukker, cycle, cyclus, and wheel.
Other theories also exist, in particular a contraction from the documented phrase “Ikey-Kikey”, an American-origin reduplication of ikey, which in turn is a British-English pejorative for Jews after the prevalence of the name Isaac.
Alternatively, from Scots keek (“to peek or peep surreptitiously”), used in the New York City clothing industry to refer to the practice of sending spies to work in competing garment factories to copy designs which would then be reproduced and sold at lower cost. Eastern European Jews played a major role in the clothing industry and were perceived to frequently participate in underhanded business tactics. Originally mostly used by older, established German Jews to refer to the Eastern European newcomers, eventually it became generalized to all Jews.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To gaze; to stare. [Obs.] Chaucer.
  2. verb To kick [Obs.] Chaucer.

Etymology [Cf. D. kijken, Sw. kika.]

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