Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iː	see	ɪ	sit	e / ɛ	bed	æ	cat
ɑː	father	ɒ	hot (UK)	ɔː	law	ʊ	put
uː	too	ʌ	cup	ɜː	bird	ə	about
eɪ	day	aɪ	my	ɔɪ	boy	aʊ	now
əʊ / oʊ	go (UK / US)	ɪə	near	eə	hair	ʊə	tour

Consonants that look unusual

θ	thin	ð	this	ʃ	she	ʒ	measure
tʃ	church	dʒ	judge	ŋ	sing	j	yes

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

ropes

UK /ɹəʊps/ · US /ɹoʊps/ noun, proper noun

Also a form of rope

noun (in the plural, with the) Basic skills of a job. “show the ropes, learn the ropes”
proper noun A surname.

Etymology

In the sense of skills, a now figurative use that originally referred to literal ropes.
The phrase “he knows the ropes” written on a seaman’s discharge meant that he was inexperienced and only familiar with a ship’s principal ropes.

Sources: Wiktionary — from the Wiktionary entry “ropes”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details

Sanskrit

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

अरश्मन् a-raśman having no ropes or reins.
पाश्या pāśyā a number or multitude of nooses, a collection of ropes; a net.
दामनी dāmanī a multitude of ropes or strings for tying cattle (especially calves).
गल्या galyā a multitude of throats; a quantity of a particular kind of grass or of ropes made of it.
विपूय vi-pūya the Muñja grass, Saccharum Munja (so called from being cleaned before being made into ropes).
चिमि cimi a parrot; a kind of plant, from the fibres of which coarse cloth and ropes are made, = paṭṭa-vṛkṣa.
अतन्त्र a-tantra having no ropes or no (musical) strings; unrestrained; ( am ), n. not the object of a rule or of the rule un…
कुट्मल kuṭmala opening or expanding as the blossom of a flower, blossoming; ( as, am ), m. n. an opening bud; ( am ), n. on…

All 11 Sanskrit matches →