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

rifle

/ˈɹaɪfəl/ noun, verb

Forms rifles rifling rifled

  1. noun (weaponry) A firearm fired from the shoulder; improved range and accuracy is provided by a long, rifled barrel.
  2. noun (military, usually in the plural, dated) A rifleman.
  3. noun (weaponry) An artillery piece with a rifled barrel.
  4. noun A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.
  5. verb (intransitive) To quickly search through many items (such as papers, the contents of a drawer, a pile of clothing). “She made a mess when she rifled through the stack of papers, looking for the title document.”
  6. verb (intransitive) To commit robbery or theft.
  7. verb (transitive) To search with intent to steal.
  8. verb (transitive) To strip of goods; to rob; to pillage.
  9. verb (transitive) To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off.
  10. verb (transitive) To add a spiral groove to a gun bore to make a fired bullet spin in flight in order to improve range and accuracy.
  11. verb (transitive) To cause (a projectile, as a rifle bullet) to travel in a flat ballistic trajectory.
  12. verb (intransitive) To move in a flat ballistic trajectory (as a rifle bullet).

Synonyms

riffle ransack pillage plunder loot despoil reave strip foray go

Etymology

Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel. From Middle English riflen (“to rob, plunder, search through”), from Old French rifler (“to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder”), from Old High German riffilōn (compare German riffeln (“to score, make grooves in, ripple”), archaic Dutch rijfelen (“to scrape”), Old English rifelan, riflian (“to wrinkle”)), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (compare Old Norse rífa (“to tear, break”)). More at rive.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off. Till time shall rifle every youthful grace. Pope.
  2. verb To strip; to rob; to pillage. Piers Plowman.
  3. verb To raffle. [Obs.] Chapman.
  4. verb To commit robbery. [R.] Bp. Hall.

Etymology [F. rifler to rifle, sweep away; of uncertain origin. CF. Raff.]

Etymology [Akin to Dan. rifle, or riffel, the rifle of a gun, a chamfer (cf. riffel, riffelbösse, a rifle gun, rifle to rifle a gun, G. riefeln, riefen, to chamfer, groove), and E. rive. See Rive, and cf. Riffle, Rivel.]

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