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

shire

UK /ʃaɪə/ · US /ʃaɪ(ə)ɹ/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms shires shiring shired

  1. noun (chiefly historical) An administrative area or district between about the 5th to the 11th century, subdivided into hundreds or wapentakes and jointly governed by an ealdorman and a sheriff; also, a present-day area corresponding to such a historical district; a county; especially (England), a county having a name ending in -shire. “Yorkshire is the largest shire in England.”
  2. noun (by extension) The people living in a shire (noun sense 1.1) considered collectively.
  3. noun (by extension, informal) The general area in which a person comes from or lives. “When are you coming back to the shire?”
  4. noun (by extension) An administrative area or district in other countries.
  5. noun (Australia, often attributive) An outer suburban or rural local government area which elects its own council.
  6. noun A district or province governed by a person; specifically (Christianity), the province of an archbishop, the see of a bishop, etc.
  7. noun (by extension, generally) A region; also, a country.
  8. verb (transitive) To constitute or reconstitute (a country or region) into one or more shires (noun sense 1.1) or counties. “County Longford was shired in 1586.”
  9. proper noun A surname.
  10. proper noun A placename.
  11. proper noun (with the) A river in Malawi and Mozambique
  12. noun A breed of draught horse; an individual of this breed. “The Shire was a favorite on this estate.”

Synonyms

shire horse

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English schire (“region, shire, county”) [and other forms], from Old English sċīr (“administrative region under an alderman and sheriff, shire; district under a governor or official; status of an official, office”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *skīru (“district; status of an official, office”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Latin cūra (“care, concern; administration, charge, management; command, office”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeys- (“to heed; to see”).
The verb is derived from the noun.

English and Irish surname, from shire.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A portion of Great Britain originally under the supervision of an earl; a territorial division, usually identical with a county, but sometimes limited to a smaller district; as, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, Richmondshire, Hallamshire.
  2. noun A division of a State, embracing several contiguous townships; a county. [U. S.]

Etymology [AS. scire, scir, a division, province, county. Cf. Sheriff.]

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