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

belles-lettres

/ˌbɛlˈlɛtɹ(ə)/ noun

Forms belles lettres belles-letters belle-lettre

  1. noun (obsolete) The humanities.
  2. noun (archaic) Literature, particularly light compositions valued for their aesthetic properties.
  3. noun (archaic) Literary studies, particularly literary aesthetics.

Synonyms

polite literature belles lettres

Etymology

Borrowed from French belles-lettres (“fine writings”), a parallel construction with the beaux arts (“fine arts”). Littré considered the belles-lettres to embrace grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. Sense embracing all of the humanities under the influence of Latin literae humaniores.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun Polite or elegant literature; the humanities; --used somewhat vaguely for literary works in which imagination and taste are predominant.

Etymology [F.]

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