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

make-believe

/ˈmeɪk bəˌliːv/ noun, adjective

Forms make-believes makebelieve make believe

  1. noun (uncountable) The quality or act of pretending; acting as if something is true when in fact one knows it is not.
  2. noun (uncountable) The condition of pretending or imagining that things are better than they really are.
  3. noun (countable) Something imaginary.
  4. adjective Imaginary; not real; pretend. “He called himself Lord So-and-So, even had his family crest on the wall, but it was all totally make-believe.”

Synonyms

pretense pretence pretend

Etymology

Deverbal from make believe.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A feigning to believe, as in the play of children; a mere pretense; a fiction; an invention. "Childlike make-believe." Tylor.
  2. adjective Feigned; insincere. "Make-believe reverence." G. Eliot.

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