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

musette

UK /mjuːˈzɛt/ · US /mjuˈzɛt/ noun

Forms musettes

  1. noun (historical) Any of various small bagpipes having a soft sound, especially with a bellows, which were popular in France in the 17th and early 18th century.
  2. noun (by extension) A pastoral air or tune that has a drone imitating such an instrument; also, a dance performed to this music.
  3. noun (historical) An organ stop using reed pipes with cone-shaped resonators, found in organs in France in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  4. noun A small oboe without a cap for its reed, which evolved from the chanter or pipe of bagpipes; a piccolo oboe.
  5. noun (chiefly US, originally military) In full musette bag: a small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap, formerly used by soldiers, and now (cycling) chiefly by cyclists to hold food and beverages or other items.

Synonyms

pastoral oboe shepherd's pipe oboe musette piccoloboe

Etymology

* Late Middle English musette (“type of bagpipe”), from Middle French musette, Old French musette (“type of bagpipe”) (modern French musette), from muse (“bagpipe”) + -ette (diminutive suffix). Muse is derived from muser (“to play the bagpipe; (figuratively) to flatter”), perhaps from musel (“muzzle (protruding part of an animal’s head)”) (alluding to a bagpipe player puffing out the cheeks), from Late Latin mūsus (“muzzle”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps expressive of protruding lips and/or influenced by Latin mūgiō (“to bellow, low, moo”), from Proto-Indo-European *mug-, *mūg- (onomatopoeia of the lowing of cattle).
* Borrowed from French musette in the 18th century.
Sense 2 (“small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap”) is due to the resemblance of the original knapsack to the bag of bagpipes.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A small bagpipe formerly in use, having a soft and sweet tone.
  2. noun An air adapted to this instrument; also, a kind of rustic dance.

Etymology [F., dim. of OF. muse.]

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