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

queer

UK /kwɪə/ · US /kwɪɹ/ adjective, noun, verb, adverb

Forms queerer queerest queers queering queered qwer

  1. adjective (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) Homosexual.
  2. adjective (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) Non-heterosexual or non-cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
  3. adjective (loosely) Pertaining to sexual or gender behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual or cisgender norms, assumptions etc. “the queer community”
  4. adjective (dated, often humorous) Strange, odd, or different; whimsical.
  5. adjective (UK, informal, dated) Slightly unwell. “I felt queer after eating those shrimp.”
  6. adjective (UK, slang, dated) Drunk.
  7. noun (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
  8. noun (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person of any non-heterosexual sexuality or sexual identity.
  9. noun (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person of any genderqueer identity.
  10. noun (with definite article, informal, archaic) Counterfeit money.
  11. verb (transitive, dated) To render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.
  12. verb (UK, dialect, dated) To puzzle.
  13. verb (slang, dated) To ridicule; to banter; to rally.
  14. verb (slang, dated) To spoil the effect or success of, as by ridicule; to throw a wet blanket on; to spoil.
  15. verb (social sciences) To reevaluate or reinterpret (a work) with an eye to sexual orientation and/or to gender, as by applying queer theory.
  16. verb (slang, LGBTQ, neologism) To make a work more appealing or attractive to LGBT people, such as by not having strict genders for playable characters.
  17. adverb Queerly.
  18. adverb (Ireland) Very, extremely. “Twas a queer bachram in the pub that night!”
  19. adjective (chiefly US) Of or relating to the culture surrounding queer people.

Synonyms

homophile homosexual like that similisexual that way aberrant abnormal alien anomalous as queer as Dick's hatband bizarre booky curious deviant discrepant eerie eldritch errant exceptional extraordinary fagot faggot fag fairy nance pansy queen poof poove pouf

Etymology

Attested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-centre”) or the related German quer (“diagonal”), from Old Saxon thwerh, from Proto-West Germanic *þwerh, from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to turn, twist, wind”); compare Latin torqueō, and see more at thwart. The OED argues against this due to the semantic differences and the date at which the word appears in Scots.
Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s; see usage notes for more.

From queer.

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective At variance with what is usual or normal; differing in some odd way from what is ordinary; odd; singular; strange; whimsical; as, a queer story or act. " A queer look." W. Irving.
  2. adjective Mysterious; suspicious; questionable; as, a queer transaction.
  3. noun Counterfeit money. [Slang] To shove the queer, to put counterfeit money in circulation. [Slang]

Etymology [G. quer cross, oblique, athwart (cf. querkopf a queer fellow), OHG. twer, twerh, dwerah; akin to D. dvars, AS, þweorh thwart, bent, twisted, Icel. þverr thwart, transverse, Goth. þwaìrhs angry, and perh. to L. torqyere to twist, and E. through. Cf. Torture, Through, Thwart, a.]

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