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

smirch

/smɜː(ɹ)t͡ʃ/ noun, verb

Forms smirches smirching smirched smurch smerch

  1. noun (archaic) Dirt, or a stain.
  2. noun (figurative, archaic) A stain on somebody's reputation.
  3. verb (transitive, archaic) To dirty; to make dirty.
  4. verb (transitive, figurative, archaic) To harm the reputation of; to smear or slander.
  5. noun (astronomy) A chirp of radiation power from an astronomical body that has a smeared appearance on its plot in the time-frequency plane (usually associated with massive bodies orbiting supermassive black holes)

Synonyms

besmirch file soil assoil beclart bedaub bedirty imbrue (especially with blood) bedizen befile befilth befoul begrime beray beshit besmear besully bewray blacken blot smudge spot daub smear slur stain defame slander asperse denigrate

Etymology

From Middle English *smorchen ("to spatter, soil"; attested in besmorchid (“bespattered, soiled all over”)), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a derivative of Middle English smeoren, smuren, smeren (“to smear”) or related to Middle English smotry (“sooty, grimy”). Compare also Middle English bismotered (“bespattered, soiled”), Old French esmorcher (“to torture”), Middle English smoterly, smoterlich (“besmirched”), modern English smut.

Blend of smear + chirp.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To smear with something which stains, or makes dirty; to smutch; to begrime; to soil; to sully.
  2. noun A smutch; a dirty stain.

Etymology [From the root of smear.]

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