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

stonewall

UK /ˈstəʊnwɔːl/ · US /ˈstoʊnwɔl/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun

Forms stonewalls stonewalling stonewalled

  1. noun (idiomatic) An obstruction.
  2. noun (idiomatic) A refusal to cooperate.
  3. noun (idiomatic, historical) An alcoholic drink popular in colonial America, consisting of apple cider (or sometimes applejack) mixed with rum (or sometimes gin or whisky).
  4. verb (transitive) To obstruct.
  5. verb (ambitransitive, informal) To refuse to answer or cooperate, especially in supplying information. “At the press conference, the Prime Minister appeared to be stonewalling when asked about tax increases.”
  6. adjective (UK) Certain, definite.
  7. proper noun (historical) A series of riots in 1969 New York City, beginning with the patrons of the gay bar "The Stonewall Inn" resisting police arrest, which marked the beginning of the militant gay rights movement.
  8. proper noun A nickname of Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Jackson.
  9. proper noun (chess) A formation in chess (a variation of the Queen's Pawn Game) in which white plays pawns to d4 and several other positions, requiring black to react energetically (see Stonewall Attack).
  10. proper noun A town in Manitoba, Canada.
  11. proper noun A former gold-mining town in California, in the Cuyamaca Mountains.
  12. proper noun A town in Louisiana.
  13. proper noun A town in Mississippi.
  14. proper noun A town in North Carolina.

Synonyms

stone cold

Etymology

From Middle English stonwal, stone wall, stanewalle (“wall made of stone”), from Old English stānweall (“stonewall”), equivalent to stone + wall. The alcoholic drink (sense 3) was perhaps named thus because its effect was as potent as running into a stone wall.

Apparently a corruption of stone cold.

From stone + wall. The drink is so named because its effect is likened to running into a stone wall. The riots take their name from the Stonewall Inn where they began (in the 1840s, the property was called Bonnie's Stone Wall, later renamed to Bonnie's Stonewall Inn, then the Stonewall Inn Restaurant, and then the Stonewall Inn). The Confederate general acquired his nickname after a battle in which, while other troops were in motion, fellow general Barnard E. Bee observed "there stands Jackson like a stone wall" (either resolutely, or unhelpfully). The chess setup is so named because it is a solid formation which is hard to overrun by force, like a stone wall.

Sources: Wiktionary — from the Wiktionary entry “stonewall”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details