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

metabolism

UK /mɪˈtab.ə.lɪz.əm/ · US /məˈtæb.əˌlɪz.əm/ noun, proper noun

Forms metabolisms

  1. noun (physiology) The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life. “The metabolisms of aerobic bacteria require oxygen”
  2. noun (physiology, by extension) The rate at which these processes occur for a given organism “Small animals have a much higher metabolism than large animals because they lose more body heat”
  3. noun (figurative, by extension) The processes that maintain any dynamic system.
  4. proper noun A post-war Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth.

Synonyms

metamorphosis metabolic process

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μεταβολή (metabolḗ, “change”) + -ism, from μεταβάλλω (metabállō, “to change, to alter”) + -η (-ē, action noun suffix).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun The act or process, by which living tissues or cells take up and convert into their own proper substance the nutritive material brought to them by the blood, or by which they transform their cell protoplasm into simpler substances, which are fitted either for excretion or for some special purpose, as in the manufacture of the digestive ferments. Hence, metabolism may be either constructive (anabolism), or destructive (katabolism).

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