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

tit

/tɪt/ noun, verb

Forms tits titting titted tet

  1. noun (chiefly in the plural) A person's breast or nipple.
  2. noun An animal's teat or udder.
  3. noun (UK, Ireland, derogatory, slang) An idiot; a fool. “Look at that tit driving on the wrong side of the road!”
  4. noun (UK, Ireland, derogatory, slang) A police officer; a "tithead".
  5. noun (archaic) A light blow or hit (now usually in the phrase tit for tat).
  6. verb (transitive or intransitive, obsolete) To strike lightly, tap, pat.
  7. verb (transitive, obsolete) To taunt, to reproach.
  8. noun A chickadee; a small passerine bird of the genus Parus or the family Paridae, common in the Northern Hemisphere.
  9. noun Any of various other small passerine birds.
  10. noun (archaic) A small horse; a nag.
  11. noun (archaic) A young girl, later especially a minx, hussy.
  12. noun A morsel; a bit.

Synonyms

addle-brain addlehead addle pate airhead baboon beanbrain beetlebrain beetlehead berk bimbo birdbrain blockhead blubberbrain bonehead Boeotian boob bozo brainlet brickhead bubblehead breast bosom knocker titty nipple mammilla mamilla pap teat titmouse

Etymology

From Middle English tit, titte, tette, from Old English tit, titt, from Proto-West Germanic *titt, from Proto-Germanic *tittaz (“teat; nipple; breast”), of expressive origin.
Perhaps related to an original meaning “to suck”; compare Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-y-. Doublet of teat, which was borrowed from Old French.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tit, Dutch tiet, dialectal Dutch tet, German Zitze, Titte, Hunsrik Ditz, Yiddish ציצע (tsitse).

Perhaps imitative of light tap. Compare earlier tip for tap (“blow for blow”), from tip + tap; compare also dialectal tint for tant.

Probably of North Germanic/Scandinavian origin; found earliest in titling and titmouse; compare Faroese títlingur, dialectal Norwegian titling (“small stockfish”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A small horse. Tusser.
  2. noun A woman; --used in contempt. Burton.

Etymology [OE.; cf. Icel. titter a tit or small bird. The word probably meant originally, something small, and is perhaps the same as teat. Cf. Titmouse, Tittle.]

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