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

rattail

/ˈɹæt.teɪl/ noun

Forms rattails rat-tail

  1. noun Any of the large dark-colored deep-sea fish of the Macrouridae family of ray-finned fish.
  2. noun A fish, a California chimera (Hydrolagus colliei, syn. Chimaera colliei).
  3. noun A hairstyle characterized by a long lock of tail-like hair dangling from the back of the head; the dangling lock itself.
  4. noun A type of file (cutting tool) with a round cross section and usually also a taper toward the distal end.
  5. noun (slang) A towel that has been tightly twisted along the diagonal to make a rudimentary whip with a towel corner at the tip, typically used in juvenile pranks.
  6. noun An excrescence growing from the pastern to the middle of the shank of a horse.
  7. noun The flowering plant Stachytarpheta cayennensis.

Synonyms

grenadier macrourid whiptail rat-tail file rattail fish

Etymology

From rat + tail: all of the nonliteral senses come from something else's fancied resemblance to the tail of a rat.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “rattail”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details