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

luff

/lʌf/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms luffs luffing luffed

  1. noun (nautical) The vertical edge of a sail that is closest to the direction of the wind. “By easing the halyard, the luff of the sail was made to sag to leeward.”
  2. noun (nautical) The act of sailing a ship close to the wind.
  3. noun (nautical) The roundest part of a ship's bow.
  4. noun (nautical) The forward or weather leech of a sail, especially of the jib, spanker, and other fore-and-aft sails.
  5. verb (nautical, of a sail, intransitive) To shake due to being trimmed improperly.
  6. verb (nautical, of sailing vessels, intransitive) To bring the ship's head up closer to the wind. (Alternatively luff up)
  7. verb (nautical, transitive) to let out (a sail) so that it luffs.
  8. verb (mechanical) To alter the vertical angle of the jib of a crane so as to bring it level with the load.
  9. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

point

Etymology

From Old French lof. Collins English Dictionary states that this word is ultimately derived from Middle Dutch loef. Ellert Ekwall's Shakspere's Vocabulary: its etymological elements (1903) related this verb and loof instead to the East Frisian verb lofen, lufen, which would make it cognate to the French term lover.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To turn the head of a vessel toward the wind; to sail nearer the wind; to turn the tiller so as to make the vessel sail nearer the wind. To luff round, or To luff alee, to make the extreme of this movement, for the purpose of throwing the ship's head into the wind.

Etymology [OE. lof, prob. a sort of timber by which the course of a ship was directed, perh. a sort of paddle; cf. D. loef luff, loeven to luff. The word is perh. akin to E. glove. Cf. Aloof.]

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