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

leverage

/ˈlɛv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/ noun, verb

Forms leverages leveraging leveraged

  1. noun A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot. “A crowbar uses leverage to pry nails out of wood.”
  2. noun (by extension) Any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage. “Try using competitors’ prices for leverage in the negotiation.”
  3. noun (finance) The use of borrowed funds with a contractually determined return to increase the ability to invest and earn an expected higher return, but usually at high risk. “Leverage is great until something goes wrong with your investments and you still have to pay your debts.”
  4. noun (finance) The debt-to-equity ratio.
  5. noun (business) The ability to earn very high returns when operating at high-capacity utilization of a facility. “Their variable-cost-reducing investments have dramatically increased their leverage.”
  6. noun (statistics, regression analytics) The distance of between an independent observation and other observations.
  7. verb (transitive, chiefly US, slang, business) To use; to exploit; to manipulate in order to take full advantage (of something). “They plan to leverage the publicity into a good distribution agreement.”

Synonyms

mechanical advantage gearing operating leverage exploit use purchase leveraging

Etymology

From lever + -age. The verb likely comes from martial arts/judo usage, where one would "use an opponent's leverage (i.e. their weight, height, centre of balance, etc.)" against them in order to defeat them.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun The action of a lever; mechanical advantage gained by the lever. Leverage of a couple (Mech.), the perpendicular distance between the lines of action of two forces which act in parallel and opposite directions.

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