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

pi

/paɪ/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun

Forms pis pies piing pied Pe P'i P.I. P. I.

  1. noun The sixteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabets and the seventeenth in Old Greek.
  2. noun (mathematics) An irrational and transcendental constant representing the ratio of the circumference of a Euclidean circle to its diameter; approximately 3.14159265.
  3. noun (letterpress typography) Metal type that has been spilled, mixed together, or disordered.
  4. verb (letterpress typography) To spill or mix printing type.
  5. adjective (typography) Not part of the usual font character set; especially, non-Roman type or symbols as opposed to standard alphanumeric Roman type. “In computing, pi characters may be entered with special key combinations.”
  6. noun (typography) pica (conventionally, 12 points = 1 pica, 6 picas = 1 inch).
  7. noun Piaster.
  8. adjective Pious.
  9. proper noun (historical) A county of Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

Synonyms

Archimedes' constant Ludolphian number Ludolph's constant Ludolph's number Pixian Pe Heen P'i Hsien Pidu PH PHL PHI private detective private eye private investigator operative shamus sherlock principal investigator protease inhibitor

Etymology

From Koine Greek πῖ (pî), from Ancient Greek πεῖ (peî), ultimately from Proto-Semitic *pay- (“mouth”). Doublet of pe. Its mathematical use apparently stems from its use as the first letter in περιφέρεια (periphéreia, “periphery; circumference”) and was first cited in 1706 in the Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos by William Jones.

Unclear. Possibly from the Greek letter (see Etymology 1) as a common example of non-alphabetic character, possibly from pica (“type size”) (see Etymology 3), possibly from pie referring to its mixed nature or pied (“checkered, multicoloured”).

Abbreviations.

From Mandarin 郫 (Pí).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A mass of type confusedly mixed or unsorted. [Written also pie.]
  2. verb To put into a mixed and disordered condition, as type; to mix and disarrange the type of; as, to pi a form. [Written also pie.]

Etymology [See Pica, Pie magpie, service-book.]

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