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

sheer

UK /ʃɪə̯/ · US /ʃɪɚ/ adjective, adverb, noun, verb, proper noun

Forms sheerer sheerest sheers sheering sheered

  1. adjective (textiles) Very thin or transparent. “Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.”
  2. adjective (obsolete) Pure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.
  3. adjective (by extension) Downright; complete; pure. “I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.”
  4. adjective Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something. “The army's sheer size made it impossible to resist.”
  5. adjective Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular. “It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.”
  6. adverb (archaic) Clean; completely; at once.
  7. noun A sheer curtain or fabric. “Use sheers to maximize natural light.”
  8. noun (nautical) The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
  9. noun (nautical) An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.
  10. verb (chiefly nautical) To swerve from a course.
  11. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

diaphanous see-through thin pure undiluted downright unmitigated utter abject frightful absolute prize clean arrant categoric categorical complete consummate decided full swerve curve trend veer slue slew cut out-and-out rank right-down

Antonyms

opaque

Etymology

From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English sċǣre (“pure, sheer; shining, clear”), from Proto-Germanic *skairiz; supplanted the semantically close shire (dialectal), from Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English sċīr (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”), beside which existed Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”), both from Proto-Germanic *skīriz (“pure, sheer”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“luster, gloss, shadow”).
Cognate with Danish skær, German schier (“sheer”), German Low German schier (“sheer, pure, unadulterated”; “completely, almost”), Dutch schier (“almost”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍂𐍃 (skeirs, “clear, lucid”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian hir (“grace, beauty; goodwill”).

Perhaps from Dutch scheren (“to move aside, skim”); see also shear.

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective Bright; clear; pure; unmixed. "Sheer ale." Shak.
  2. adjective Very thin or transparent; --applied to fabrics; as, sheer muslin.
  3. adverb Clean; quite; at once. [Obs.] Milton.
  4. verb To shear. [Obs.] Dryden.

Etymology [OE. shere, skere, pure, bright, Icel. sk; akin to skirr, AS. scir, OS. skiri, MHG. schir, G. schier, Dan. sk, Sw. skär, Goth. skeirs clear, and E. shine. sq. root157. See Shine, v. i.]

Etymology [See Shear.]

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