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

shamble

/ˈʃeə̯mbəl/ noun, adjective, verb

Forms shambles shambling shambled

  1. noun (mining) One of a succession of niches or platforms, one above another, to hold ore which is thrown successively from platform to platform, and thus raised to a higher level.
  2. adjective (rare) Shambling, awkward, ungainly; distorted, ill-shapen, wry. “His awkward stagger is due to his shamble legs.”
  3. verb To walk while shuffling or dragging the feet. “I wasn't too impressed with the fellow, when he shambled in unenthusiastically and an hour late.”

Synonyms

shuffle stagger shambling shuffling scuffle

Etymology

From Middle English schambyll, shamyll, schamel, from Old English sċeamol, scamol (“bench, stool”), from Proto-West Germanic *skamul, *skamil, from Proto-Germanic *skamulaz, *skamilaz, from Latin scamellum, a variant of scabellum (“footstool”). Cognate with West Frisian skammel (“shamble, trestle, stool", also (in the plural) "legs, especially when showing defects or deformities”), Dutch schemel (“footstool, bench”), German Schemel (“stool”), Danish skammel (“stool”). Icelandic skemill (“footstool”).
The verb is probably derived from the adjective, itself from attributive use of the noun. Compare West Frisian skammelje (“to walk with a swaying gait, especially on deformed legs”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun One of a succession of niches or platforms, one above another, to hold ore which is thrown successively from platform to platform, and thus raised to a higher level.
  2. noun pl.
  3. verb To walk awkwardly and unsteadily, as if the knees were weak; to shuffle along.

Etymology [OE. schamel a bench, stool, AS. scamel, sceamol, a bench, form, stool, fr. L. scamellum, dim. of scamnum a bench, stool.]

Etymology [Cf. OD. schampelen to slip, schampen to slip away, escape. Cf. Scamble, Scamper.]

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