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

nickel

/ˈnɪk.əl/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun

Forms nickels nickeling nickelling nickeled nickelled

  1. noun (uncountable) A silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni.
  2. noun (US, Canada, countable) A coin worth 5 cents.
  3. noun (US, slang, by extension) Five dollars.
  4. noun (US, slang, by extension) Five hundred dollars.
  5. noun (US, slang, sometimes the nickel or the hot nickel) Interstate 5, a highway that runs along the West Coast of the United States.
  6. noun (slang) A playing card with the rank of five.
  7. noun (US, slang) A five-year prison sentence.
  8. noun (American football) A defensive formation with five defensive backs, one of whom is a nickelback, instead of the more-common four.
  9. adjective (US, idiomatic, somewhat dated) Synonym of cheap: Low price and/or low value. “Let me give you the nickel tour of the office.”
  10. verb (transitive) To plate with nickel.
  11. verb (UK, World War II) To distribute airborne leaflet propaganda.
  12. proper noun A surname originating as a patronymic.

Synonyms

jitney sixpenny tinhorn two a penny bargainous brand X budget cheap cheapie cheapo cheesy competitive dime a dozen economic economical el cheapo inexpensive low-cost low-end low-priced Ni atomic number 28 nickel note

Etymology

Borrowed from German Nickel, first used in a text by the Swedish mineralogist Axel F. Cronstedt as an abbreviation of Kupfernickel (“a mineral containing copper and nickel”), from Kupfer (“copper”) + Nickel (“insignificant person, goblin”), originally nickname of Nikolaus (“Nicholas”), due to the deceptive silver colour of the relatively valueless ore. Compare cobalt as related to kobolds.

One of the variant spellings of Nichol, a Middle English vernacular form of the given name Nicholas.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A bright silver-white metallic element. It is of the iron group, and is hard, malleable, and ductile. It occurs combined with sulphur in millerite, with arsenic in the mineral niccolite, and with arsenic and sulphur in nickel glance. Symbol Ni. Atomic weight 58.6.
  2. noun A small coin made of or containing nickel; esp., a five-cent piece. [Colloq. U.S.] Nickel silver, an alloy of nickel, copper, and zinc; --usually called german silver; called also argentan.

Etymology [G., fr. Sw. nickel, abbrev. from Sw. kopparnickel copper-nickel, a name given in derision, as it was thought to be a base ore of copper. The origin of the second part of the word is uncertain. Cf. Kupfer-nickel, Copper-nickel.]

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