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

lobster

UK /ˈlɒb.stə/ · US /ˈlɑb.stɚ/ noun, verb, adjective

Forms lobsters lobstering lobstered

  1. noun A crustacean of the Nephropidae family, dark green or blue-black in colour turning bright red when cooked, with a hard shell and claws, which is used as a seafood.
  2. noun A spiny lobster, also called the rock lobster, a crustacean of the Palinuridae family, pinkish red in colour, with a hard, spiny shell but no claws, which is used as a seafood.
  3. noun A slipper lobster (a crustacean of the family Scyllaridae).
  4. noun A squat lobster.
  5. noun (slang, historical) A soldier or officer of the imperial British Army (due to their red or scarlet uniform).
  6. noun (slang) An Australian twenty-dollar note, due to its reddish-orange colour.
  7. verb To fish for lobsters.
  8. adjective Red-colored, especially from a sunburn.

Synonyms

lobsterback redcoat sea locust red as a lobster

Etymology

From Middle English loppestere, lopster, from Old English loppestre, lopustre, lopystre, of uncertain origin. Some believe it to be a corruption of Latin lō̆custa (“grasshopper, locust”) + the Old English feminine agent suffix -estre. In Latin, the phrase lō̆custa marīna (literally "sea-grasshopper") signified a type of crustacean (shrimp or lobster).
Alternatively, from Old English lobbe, loppe (“spider”) + the Old English feminine agent suffix -estre, equivalent to lop + -ster.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun Any large macrurous crustacean used as food, esp. those of the genus Homarus; as the American lobster (H. Americanus), and the European lobster (H. vulgaris). The Norwegian lobster (Nephrops Norvegicus) is similar in form. All these have a pair of large unequal claws. The spiny lobsters of more southern waters, belonging to Palinurus, Panulirus, and allied genera, have no large claws. The fresh-water crayfishes are sometimes called lobsters. Lobster caterpillar (Zoöl.), the caterpillar of a European bombycid moth (Stauropus fagi); --so called from its form. Lobster louse (Zoöl.), a copepod cru

Etymology [AS. loppestre, lopystre prob., corrupted fr. L. locusta a marine shellfish, a kind of lobster, a locust. Cf. Locust.]

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