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

pimpernel

/ˈpɪmpənɛl/ noun

Forms pimpernels

  1. noun (now rare) A plant of the genus Pimpinella, especially burnet saxifrage (Pimpinella saxifraga).
  2. noun Any of various plants of the genus Anagallis, having small red, white or purple flowers, especially the scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis).
  3. noun Great burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis)
  4. noun Salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor).
  5. noun (Canada, US) A yellow pimpernel (Taenidia integerrima)
  6. noun (figurative) Someone resembling the fictional Scarlet Pimpernel; a gallant dashing resourceful man given to remarkable feats of bravery and derring-do in liberating victims of tyranny and injustice.

Synonyms

salad burnet burnet bloodwort Poterium sanguisorba

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman pimpernele et al., Middle French pimpinelle (“burnet saxifrage”) et al., from Medieval Latin pimpinella, pipinella, most likely from piper (“pepper”) because its fruit resembled peppercorns, although variants may suggest other derivations, bipinnella the bipennis (“two-winged”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A plant of the genus Anagallis, of which one species (A. arvensis) has small flowers, usually scarlet, but sometimes purple, blue, or white, which speedily close at the approach of bad weather.

Etymology [F. pimprenelle; cf. Sp. pimpinela, It. pimpinella; perh. from LL. bipinnella, for bipinnula two-winged, equiv. to L. bipennis; bis twice + penna feather, wing. Cf. Pen a feather.]

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