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

silhouette

UK /ˌsɪlʊˈɛt/ · US /ˌsɪluˈɛt/ noun, verb

Forms silhouettes silhouetting silhouetted silhouet

  1. noun (art) An artistic depiction, often of a person's profile, in the form of an outline without any other visual details, similar to a shadow, made by cutting a piece of black paper, filling in an outline with a solid colour (usually black), etc.
  2. noun A dark outline of someone or something seen against a brighter background. “I could see a silhouette of a figure looking out from the window, but I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.”
  3. noun (fashion) An outline of a garment as it appears on a wearer. “A-line is a classic silhouette for dresses and skirts.”
  4. noun (figurative) A brief written description of someone or something; an outline, a sketch.
  5. verb (transitive, reflexive, often passive voice) Often followed by against or upon: to depict (oneself or someone, or something) as a silhouette (noun sense 1 or noun sense 2.1); to project (oneself or someone, or something) upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette.
  6. verb (intransitive) To appear as a silhouette.

Etymology

The noun is a unadapted borrowing from French silhouette, from the surname of Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767), France’s Controller-General of Finances. It has been suggested that the word refers to one or more of the following:
* De Silhouette’s penny-pinching policies which led to the French term à la Silhouette, applied to things perceived as austere or cheap, akin to an outline filled only with black.
* The fact that de Silhouette only held the office of Controller-General of Finances for about eight months from 4 March to 21 November 1759.
* De Silhouette’s outline portraits which he made to decorate his château at Bry-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne.
De Silhouette’s surname is a gallicized form of Basque Ziloeta or Zilhoeta (modern Basque Zulueta), from the local plural stem (see -ak) of zulo (“hole, pit; den, hiding place”), from Proto-Basque *zuLo (“hole”).
The verb is derived from the noun.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A representation of the outlines of an object filled in with a black color; a profile portrait in black, such as a shadow appears to be.
  2. verb To represent by a silhouette; to project upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette. [Recent]

Etymology [F.; -- so called from Etienne de Silhoutte, a French minister of finance in 1759, whise diversion it was to make such portraits on the walls of his apartments.]

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