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

layman

/ˈleɪmən/ noun, proper noun

Forms laymen Laymans

  1. noun Layperson, someone who is not an ordained cleric or member of the clergy.
  2. noun (by extension) Someone who is not a professional in a given field. “Carmen is not a professional anthropologist, but strictly a layman.”
  3. noun A common person.
  4. noun A person who is untrained or lacks knowledge of a subject.
  5. noun Lay-sister or lay-brother, person received into a convent of monks, following the vows, but not being member of the order.
  6. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

layperson secular

Antonyms

professional expert specialist clergyman

Etymology

From Middle English layman, lay man, equivalent to lay (“non-clergy”) + man. Cognate with Old Frisian lēkmann, lēkmonn (“layman”), obsolete Dutch leekeman (“layman”), Old High German leihman (“layman”), Danish lægmand (“layman”), Swedish lekman (“layman”), Norwegian lekmann (“layman”), Icelandic leikmaður (“layman”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. One of the people, in distinction from the clergy; one of the laity; sometimes, a man not belonging to some particular profession, in distinction from those who do. Being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession. Dryden.
  2. A lay figure. See under Lay, n. (above). Dryden

Etymology [Lay, adj. + man.]

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