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

ornery

UK /ˈɔːnəɹi/ · US /ˈɔɹnəɹi/ adjective

Forms ornerier orneriest onery onry o'n'ry ornary

  1. adjective (originally and chiefly US, especially Appalachia, informal) Disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
  2. adjective (originally Southern US, now general US, humorous, informal) Troublesome to deal with in a good way; mischievous, prankish, teasing.
  3. adjective (obsolete) Ordinary, commonplace; hence, inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant.

Synonyms

contrary crabby cross-grained crotchety honery ill-tempered intractable obnoxious obstreperous peevish stroppy unsociable full of the devil cantankerous

Etymology

A contracted or dialectal pronunciation of ordinary. Sense 3 (“ordinary, commonplace”) was the earliest sense; the meaning of the word then shifted to “inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant”—presumably due to ordinariness—and finally to sense 1 (“disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with”).

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “ornery”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details