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

Augean stables

UK /ɔːˌd͡ʒiːən ˈsteɪbl̩z/ · US /ɔˌd͡ʒiən ˈsteɪb(ə)lz/ noun

Forms Augean stable

  1. noun (Greek mythology) The stables where King Augeas kept his vast herd.
  2. noun An extremely filthy or untidy place or situation. “She ordered him upstairs immediately to clean the Augean stables of his bedroom.”
  3. noun (figuratively) A place or situation characterized by corruption or moral decay.

Synonyms

pigpen pigsty sty den of iniquity

Etymology

From Augean (“pertaining to Augeas”) + stables. Augeas was a legendary king of Elis in Greek mythology who owned numerous divine cattle (3,000 head, according to some later retellings) which produced a huge amount of dung in stables that had not been cleaned for over 30 years. The cleaning of the stables was the fifth of the twelve Labours of Hercules, which Hercules achieved by rerouting the Alpheus and Peneus rivers through them.

Sources: Wiktionary — from the Wiktionary entry “Augean stables”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details