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

loo

UK /luː/ · US /lu/ noun, interjection, verb, proper noun

Forms loos looing looed 'loo lo lowe lu liew lue

  1. noun (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A lavatory: a room used for urination and defecation.
  2. noun (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A toilet: a fixture used for urination and defecation.
  3. interjection A cry to urge on hunting dogs.
  4. verb (now dialect, used with at, upon or infinitive) To urge on with cries of loo or (figuratively) by other shouting or outcry.
  5. noun The penalty paid to the pool in lanterloo for breaking certain rules or failing to take a trick.
  6. noun An act that prompts such a penalty.
  7. noun A game of lanterloo.
  8. noun (figuratively) Any group of people.
  9. verb (transitive) To beat in the card game lanterloo.
  10. verb To pay a penalty to the pool for breaking certain rules or failing to take a trick in lanterloo.
  11. verb (figurative, now dialect) To pay any penalty to any community.
  12. noun (fashion, obsolete) A half-mask, particularly (historical) those velvet half-masks fashionable in the 17th century as a means of protecting women's complexion from the sun.
  13. noun (India) A hot dust-bearing wind found in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab.
  14. noun (US, military, slang) A lieutenant.
  15. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

bathroom toilet water closet closet W.C.

Etymology

Uncertain, although usually derived in some way from Waterloo, the site of Wellington's 1815 victory over Napoleon, likely via a pun based on water closet. Other suggested derivations include corruptions of French l'eau (“water”), lieu (“place”), lieux d'aisances (“'places of convenience': a lavatory”), lieu à l'anglaise (“'English place': a British-style lavatory”), bordalou (“a diminutive chamber pot”) or gardez l'eau (“'mind the water'”), via Scots gardyloo, formerly used in Edinburgh while emptying chamber pots out of windows; the supposed use of "Room 100" as the lavatory in Continental hotels; a popularisation of lew, a regional corruption of lee (“downwind”), in reference to shepherds' privies or the former use of beakheads on that side of the ship for urination and defecation; or a clipped form of the name of the unpopular 19th-century Countess of Lichfield Lady Harriett Georgiana Louisa Hamilton Anson, who was the subject of an 1867 prank whereby her bedroom's name-card was placed on the door to the lavatory, prompting the other guests to begin speaking of "going to Lady Louisa".

Clipped form of halloo.

Clipped form of lanterloo.

From French loup (“wolf; mask, eyemask”). Doublet of lobo, lupus, and wolf.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun Loo table, a round table adapted for a circle of persons playing loo.
  2. verb To beat in the game of loo by winning every trick. [Written also lu.] Goldsmith.

Etymology [For older lanterloo, F. lanturelu, lanturlu, name of the game; orig., the refrain of a vaudeville.]

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