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

slick

/slɪk/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun

Forms slicker slickest slicks slicking slicked

  1. adjective Slippery or smooth due to a covering of liquid; often used to describe appearances. “This rain is making the roads slick.”
  2. adjective Sleek; smooth.
  3. adjective Appearing expensive or sophisticated. “They read all kinds of slick magazines.”
  4. adjective Superficially convincing but actually untrustworthy. “That new sales rep is slick. Be sure to read the fine print before you buy anything.”
  5. adjective (often sarcastic) Clever, making an apparently hard task look easy. “Our new process for extracting needles from haystacks is extremely slick.”
  6. adjective (US, West Coast slang) Extraordinarily great or special. “That is one slick bicycle: it has all sorts of features!”
  7. noun A covering of liquid, particularly oil. “Careful in turn three — there's an oil slick on the road.”
  8. noun (by extension, hydrodynamics, US, dated) A rapidly-expanding ring of dark water, resembling an oil slick, around the site of a large underwater explosion at shallow depth, marking the progress through the water of the shock wave generated by the explosion.
  9. noun Someone who is clever and untrustworthy.
  10. noun A tool used to make something smooth or even.
  11. noun (sports, automotive) A tire with a smooth surface instead of a tread pattern, often used in auto racing. “You'll go much faster if you put on slicks.”
  12. noun (US, military slang) A helicopter.
  13. noun (printing) A camera-ready image to be used by a printer. The "slick" is photographed to produce a negative image which is then used to burn a positive offset plate or other printing device. “The project was delayed because the slick had not been delivered to the printer.”
  14. noun (publishing, slang) A glossy magazine.
  15. verb To make slick. “The surface had been slicked.”
  16. proper noun A term of address, generally applied to males, possibly including strangers, implying that the person addressed is slick in the sense of "sophisticated", but often used sarcastically.

Synonyms

glib slick tire slick tyre slickness slipperiness slip slick magazine glossy sleek slick down sleek down pat satiny silken silky silklike crafty cunning dodgy foxy guileful knavish sly tricksy tricky wily

Etymology

From Middle English slicke, slike, slyke, from Old English slīc (“sleek, smooth; crafty, cunning, slick”), from Proto-Germanic *slīkaz (“sleek, smooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleyg-, *sleyǵ- (“to glide, smooth, spread”).
Akin to Dutch sluik, dialectal Dutch sleek (“even, smooth”), Old Norse slíkr (“sleek, smooth”), Old English slician (“to make sleek, smooth, or glossy”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun See Schlich.
  2. adjective Sleek; smooth. "Both slick and dainty." Chapman.
  3. verb To make sleek or smoth. "Slicked all with sweet oil." Chapman.
  4. noun A wide paring chisel.

Etymology [See Sleek.]

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