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

shill

/ʃɪl/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms shills shilling shilled

  1. noun A person paid to endorse a product while pretending to be impartial. “carnival barkers and their shills, fleecing the rubes”
  2. noun (derogatory) Any person enthusiastically endorsing a product; especially, one who is getting paid for the endorsement. “On the screen, there was that quack again, playing the shill for yet another drug company.”
  3. noun An accomplice at a confidence trick during an auction or gambling game, such as an accomplice of the seller who bids to drive up the price. “Sniping is necessary because if you bid before the last minute it just gives the shills more time to screw you over.”
  4. noun (gambling) A house player in a casino.
  5. verb (derogatory, intransitive, transitive) To promote or endorse in return for payment, especially dishonestly; sometimes extended sarcastically even to those not paid but strongly biased in favor. “That contractor seems to be shilling for a certain brand of building materials.”
  6. verb To put under cover; to sheal.
  7. verb (UK, obsolete, dialect) To shell.
  8. proper noun A surname.

Synonyms

shiller inside man potted plant stick shillaber

Etymology

Unknown; attested as verb 1914, as noun 1916. Perhaps an abbreviation of shillaber, attested 1913. The word entered English via carny, originally denoting a carnival worker who pretends to be a member of the audience in an attempt to elicit interest in an attraction.
Speculatively an extended form of German Schieber (“black marketeer, profiteer”) via *shi-la-ber.
There are some suggestions that it originates in the surname Shilaber or Shillibeer, especially George Shillibeer, but proposed origins are dubious as the word is first attested in North America in the 20th century, while proposed models are 19th century British.
American humorist Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814–1890) was known to write under the name Mrs. Ruth Partington to lend credibility to some of his ideas. This is one more possible origin of the word, although there is no specific evidence supporting a connection.

Unexplained.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To shell. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]
  2. verb To put under cover; to sheal. [Prov.ng.] Brockett.

Etymology [Cf. Sheal.]

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