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

merle

UK /mɜːl/ · US /mɝl/ noun, proper noun

Forms merles

  1. noun A Eurasian blackbird, Turdus merula.
  2. noun Any blackbird.
  3. noun A type of mottled coloration on dogs.
  4. noun A dog having this coloration.
  5. proper noun A surname from French of French origin.
  6. proper noun A male given name transferred from the surname.
  7. proper noun A female given name from English.

Synonyms

blackbird merl ouzel ousel European blackbird Turdus merula

Etymology

From Middle English merle, from Old French merle (French merle), from Latin merula (“blackbird”) (whence the directly borrowed Middle English merule, and compare the taxonomic name Turdus merula), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂mes- (“black, blackbird”). Compare Breton moualch (“ouzel”), Welsh mwyalch (“blackbird, thrush”). Distantly related to the synonymous ouzel.

Borrowed from French Merle.

English 19th-century bird name from merle (“blackbird”), possibly also a variant of Muriel, Merrill, etc.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun The European blackbird. See Blackbird. Drayton.

Etymology [F. merle, L. merula, merulus. Cf. Ousel.]

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