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

uncle

/ˈʌŋ.kl̩/ noun, interjection, verb

Forms uncles uncling uncled

  1. noun The brother or brother-in-law of one’s parent.
  2. noun The male cousin of one’s parent.
  3. noun (endearing) Used as a fictive kinship title for a close male friend of one's parent or parents.
  4. noun (euphemistic) Used as a title for the male companion to one's (usually unmarried) parent.
  5. noun (figuratively) A source of advice, encouragement, or help.
  6. noun (UK, informal, dated) A pawnbroker.
  7. noun (especially in the Southern US, parts of UK and South Asia) An affectionate term for a man of an older generation than oneself, especially a friend of one's parents, by means of fictive kin.
  8. noun (Southern US, slang, archaic) An older African-American male.
  9. interjection (US, colloquial) A cry used to indicate surrender.
  10. verb (transitive, colloquial) To address somebody by the term uncle.
  11. verb (intransitive, colloquial) To act like, or as, an uncle.
  12. noun (World War II era, joint US/RAF) radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter U.

Synonyms

uncleji eam eme nuncle uncley unclie uncly Uniform

Antonyms

aunt niece nephew boy aunty

Etymology

From Middle English uncle, borrowed from Anglo-Norman uncle and Old French oncle, from Vulgar Latin *aunclum, from Latin avunculus (“maternal uncle”, literally “little grandfather”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂euh₂-n-tlo- (“little grandfather”), a dialectal diminutive of *h₂éwh₂ō (“grandfather, adult male relative other than one’s father”) (whence also Latin avus (“grandfather”)). Displaced native Middle English em (“uncle”) from Old English ēam (“maternal uncle”), containing the same Proto-Indo-European root, and Old English fædera (“paternal uncle”). Compare Saterland Frisian Unkel (“uncle”), Dutch nonkel (“uncle”), German Low German Unkel (“uncle”), German Onkel (“uncle”), Danish onkel (“uncle”). More at eam and eame.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun The brother of one's father or mother; also applied to an aunt's husband; --the correlative of aunt in sex, and of nephew and niece in relationship.
  2. noun A pawnbroker. [Slang] Thackeray. My uncle, a pawnbroker. [Slang] - - Uncle Sam, a humorous appellation given to the United States Government. See Uncle Sam, in Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction.

Etymology [OE. uncle, OF. oncle, uncle, F. oncle, fr. L. avunculus a maternal uncle, dim. of avus a grandfather; akin to Lith. avynas uncle, Goth. aw grandmother, Icel. ai great grandfather.]

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

Sanskrit

Sanskrit dictionary entries whose meaning includes “uncle” (best matches first).

All 33 Sanskrit matches →