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

ravel

/ˈɹævəl/ verb, noun, proper noun

Also a form of rabble

Forms ravels raveling ravelling raveled ravelled

  1. verb To entwine or tangle (something) confusedly; to entangle.
  2. verb (also figuratively) Often followed by up: to form (something) out of discrete elements, like weaving fabric from threads; to knit.
  3. verb To unwind (a reel of thread, a skein of yarn, etc.); to pull apart (cloth, a seam, etc.); to fray, to unpick, to unravel; also, to pull out (a string of yarn, a thread, etc.) from a piece of fabric, or a skein or reel.
  4. verb To confuse or perplex (someone or something).
  5. verb (archaic) Often followed by out: to undo the intricacies of (a problem, etc.); to clarify, to disentangle.
  6. verb (obsolete) To destroy or ruin (something), like unravelling fabric.
  7. verb (programming) In the APL programming language: to reshape (a variable) into a vector.
  8. verb Often followed by out: of a reel of thread or skein of yarn; or a thread on a reel or a string of yarn in a skein, etc.: to become untwisted or unwound.
  9. noun A tangled mess; an entanglement, a snarl, a tangle.
  10. noun (figuratively) A confusing, intricate, or perplexing situation; a complication.
  11. noun (also figuratively) A thread which has unravelled from fabric, etc.; also, a situation of fabric, etc., coming apart; an unravelling.
  12. proper noun A male given name.
  13. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

mat snarl enmesh ensnare ensnarl entangle foul implicate imply involve tangle knit weave confound puzzle addle baffle vex lose embroil Maurice Ravel run ladder unravel ravel out knot

Antonyms

disentangle unravel untangle feeze tease out unsnarl unweave

Etymology

The verb is borrowed from Dutch ravelen, rafelen (“to tangle, become entangled; to fray; to unweave”) [and other forms]; further etymology uncertain. It has been suggested that the verb is originally derived from the noun, but the Oxford English Dictionary regards this as “very uncertain”, and instead regards the noun as having derived from the verb (compare Dutch rafel, raffel (“frayed thread”)).
Ravel is a contranym having both the senses of tangling (verb senses 1.1, 1.2, 1.4.1, and 2.3; noun sense 1) and untangling (verb senses 1.3, 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 2.1, and 2.2; noun sense 2). It would appear that the tangling senses predate the untangling ones (as in Dutch), but this is uncertain because the first published uses of both senses of the words occur around the same time.

* As a French surname, from Ravel.
* As an English surname, variant of Raffel.
* As a German surname, Americanized from Raffel.
* As an Indian surname, variant of Raval.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To separate or undo the texture of; to take apart; to untwist; to unweave or unknit; --often followed by out; as, to ravel a twist; to ravel out a sticking.
  2. verb To undo the intricacies of; to disentangle.
  3. verb To become untwisted or unwoven; to be disentangled; to be relieved of intricacy.
  4. verb To fall into perplexity and confusion. [Obs.]

Etymology [. ravelen, D. rafelen, akin to LG. rebeln, rebbeln, reffeln.]

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