Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

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.

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)

-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.

shoehorn

UK /ˈʃuːˌhɔːn/ · US /ˈʃuːˌhɔɹn/ noun, verb

Forms shoehorns shoehorning shoehorned shoe horn shoe-horn

noun A smooth tool that assists in putting the foot into a shoe, by sliding the heel in after the toe is in place.
noun (derogatory) Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; a medium.
noun (obsolete) Anything which draws on or allures; an inducement.
verb (literally) To use a shoehorn.
verb (transitive, figuratively) To force (something) into (a tight space); to squeeze (something) into (a schedule, etc); to exert great effort to insert or include (something); to include (something) despite potent reasons not to. “I shoehorned his dozen burgeoning bags into the backseat of my tiny car, and off we went.”
verb (transitive, figurative) To force some current event into alignment with some (usually unconnected) agenda, especially when it is fallacious. “People claiming to be psychic may shoehorn an event into fulfillment of some vague past prediction.”

Synonyms

From shoe + horn.

noun A curved piece of polished horn, wood, or metal used to facilitate the entrance of the foot into a shoe.
noun Figuratively: (a) Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; a medium; --by way of contempt. Spectator.

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