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

abstruse

UK /əbˈstɹuːs/ · US /əbˈstɹus/ adjective

Forms abstruser abstrusest

  1. adjective Difficult to comprehend or understand; obscure.
  2. adjective (obsolete) Concealed or hidden; secret.

Synonyms

abstrusive arcane cryptic esoteric recondite Chinese dense enigmatic fathomless bottomless Greek inapprehensible incognizable incomprehensible ineffable inenubilable inexplicable impenetrable insensible inscrutable deep

Antonyms

clear obvious understandable apprehensible limpid comprehensible explainable explicable explicatable fathomable graspable illuminable

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin abstrūsus (“concealed, hidden; having been concealed”), an adjective use of the perfect passive participle of abstrūdō (“to conceal, hide; to push or thrust away”), from abs- (from ab- (prefix meaning ‘away; from; away from’)) + trūdō (“to push, shove; to thrust”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to push; to thrust”)).
* German abstrus (“abstruse”)
* Italian astruso (“abstruse”)
* Middle French abstruse (modern French abstrus, abstruse (“(derogatory, literary) abstruse”)
* Portuguese abstruso (“abstruse”)
* Spanish abstruso (“abstruse”)

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective Concealed or hidden out of the way. [Obs.]
  2. adjective Remote from apprehension; difficult to be comprehended or understood; recondite; as, abstruse learning.

Etymology [L. abstrusus, p. p. of abstrudere to thrust away, conceal; ab, abs + trudere to thrust; cf. F. abstrus. See Threat.]

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

Sanskrit

Sanskrit dictionary entries whose meaning includes “abstruse” (best matches first).