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

siren

UK /ˈsaɪəɹən/ · US /ˈsaɪɹən/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun

Forms sirens sirenes sirening sirened sirene

  1. noun (Greek mythology) One of a group of nymphs who lured mariners to their death on the rocks.
  2. noun One who sings sweetly and charms.
  3. noun A dangerously seductive woman.
  4. noun A member of Sirenia, an order of mammals.
  5. noun A member of a genus of aquatic salamanders of the family Sirenidae, commonly used for all species in the family Sirenidae.
  6. noun Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Hestina.
  7. noun A device, either mechanical or electronic, that makes a piercingly loud sound as an alarm or signal, or the sound from such a device.
  8. noun (music) A musical instrument, one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of the symphony orchestra (patented as Acme Siren in 1895).
  9. verb (intransitive) To make a noise with, or as if with, a siren.
  10. verb (intransitive) To drive with a siren on.
  11. adjective Relating to or like a siren.
  12. proper noun A village, the county seat of Burnett County, Wisconsin, United States.
  13. proper noun A town in Burnett County, Wisconsin, United States, surrounding the village of the same name.

Synonyms

crooner vamp sirenian klaxon bewitching enchanting enticing sirenic enchantress temptress Delilah femme fatale

Etymology

From Middle English siren, from Old French sereine and Latin Sīrēn, Sīrēna, from Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn). The mammalian sense was first attested in French in Dominique Bouhours, Les entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène, in 1671. The aquatic salamander sense was originally introduced by Linnaeus in 1766, for a genus of his reptiles.

Intended to be Syren, from Swedish syren (“lilac”), but miscorrected by the US Post Office, who assumed this was a misspelling.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun One of three sea nymphs, --or, according to some writers, of two, --said to frequent an island near the coast of Italy, and to sing with such sweetness that they lured mariners to destruction.
  2. noun An enticing, dangerous woman. Shak.
  3. adjective Of or pertaining to a siren; bewitching, like a siren; fascinating; alluring; as, a siren song.

Etymology [L., fr. Gr. sirène.]

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