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

betroth

UK /bɪˈtɹəʊð/ · US /bəˈtɹoʊð/ verb

Forms betroths betrothing betrothed betrothen betrothest betrothedst betrothes betrotheth

  1. verb (archaic) Of a man: to promise to take (a woman) as a future spouse; to plight one's troth to.
  2. verb (archaic) Often of a parent or guardian: to promise that (two people) be married to each other; specifically and chiefly, to promise that (a woman) be given in marriage to a man; to affiance. “He betrothed his daughter to a distant relative.”
  3. verb (Christianity, archaic) Of God: to enter into a relationship with (believers, or the church as a whole); also, of a priest: to pledge (himself) to the church prior to being consecrated as a bishop.
  4. verb (obsolete) To pledge or promise oneself to (a cause); to espouse; also (sometimes reflexive), to pledge or promise (oneself or one's efforts) to a cause or to do something.

Synonyms

engage affiance plight

Etymology

From Middle English bitrouthen, bitreuthen (“of a man: to pledge to marry; to give (a woman) in marriage, arrange the marriage of”), from bi- (prefix forming transitive verbs from nouns) + trouth, treuthe (“faithfulness, fidelity, specifically marital fidelity; promise, undertaking, specifically a promise of marriage; truth; etc.”) (from Old English trīewþ, trēowþ (“fidelity; good faith, honour; assurance of good faith, covenant, troth; truth”), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiþō (“contract; promise”), from Proto-Indo-European *dóru (“tree; hence, firm, hard; faithful, true”)), possibly modelled after Old English trēowsian (“to pledge oneself; to prove oneself to be true”)). By surface analysis, be- + troth.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To contract to any one for a marriage; to engage or promise in order to marriage; to affiance; --used esp. of a woman.
  2. verb To promise to take (as a future spouse); to plight one's troth to. What man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her Deut. xx. 7.

Etymology [Pref. be- + troth, i. e., truth. See Truth.]

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