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

avatar

/ˈæv.ə.tɑɹ/ noun, proper noun

Forms avatars

  1. noun (Hinduism) An incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu.
  2. noun One which serves to act in place of or on behalf of the entity; a simulacrum.
  3. noun The embodiment of an idea or concept; an instantiation, especially an incarnation or personification.
  4. noun One which serves as the means through which the entity interacts with its environment; a player character or host.
  5. noun A graphical representation of a user or persona; used in reference to any digital environment, but especially nonmetaversal ones.
  6. noun A character model, used virtually as an emulation of a user or their persona.
  7. proper noun A male given name from Sanskrit used in India.

Synonyms

avi skin embodiment incarnation

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani अवतार (avtār) / اوتار (avtār), from Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra, “descent of a deity from a heaven”), a compound of अव (ava, “off, away, down”) and the vṛddhi-stem of the root तॄ (tṝ, “to cross”) (whence तरति (tarati)). First attested in c. 1784 in The Hindu Wife or The Enchanted Fruit, by William Jones.
The computing sense was first attested in video games in the 1980s, such as the online roleplaying game Habitat (1985) by Lucasfilm Games (today LucasArts), later versions of the Ultima series, following religious use in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985), and the pen and paper role-playing game Shadowrun (1989). This sense was also popularized by the novel Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun The descent of a deity to earth, and his incarnation as a man or an animal; --chiefly associated with the incarnations of Vishnu.
  2. noun Incarnation; manifestation as an object of worship or admiration.

Etymology [Skr. avatâra descent; ava from + root t to cross, pass over.]

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

Sanskrit

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