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

mandarin

/ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/ noun, adjective, proper noun

Forms mandarins

  1. noun (historical) A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
  2. noun A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
  3. noun (sometimes derogatory) A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles.
  4. noun (informal, UK) A senior civil servant.
  5. noun A figurine of a Chinese person with movable head that was popular in the 1950s. (Cf. bobblehead.)
  6. adjective Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist.
  7. noun A small, sweet citrus fruit.
  8. noun A tree of the species Citrus reticulata.
  9. noun An orange colour.
  10. proper noun Standard Mandarin, an official language of China and Taiwan, and one of four official languages in Singapore; Putonghua, Guoyu or Huayu.
  11. proper noun A branch of the Chinese languages, consisting of many dialects; Guanhua or Beifanghua.

Synonyms

Beifanghua Guanhua Guoyu Huayu Mandarin Chinese Putonghua Standard Chinese Standard Mandarin Standard Spoken Chinese mandarin orange mandarin orange tree Citrus reticulata Mandarin dialect Beijing dialect

Etymology

From Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri, and its source, Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), from मन्त्र (mantra, “counsel, maxim, mantra”) + -इन् (-in, an agent suffix).

From French mandarine, feminine of mandarin, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.

Calque from Chinese 官話／官话 (Guānhuà, “spoken language of the mandarins”). An extension of mandarin (“bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire”) to the language used by the imperial court and sometimes by imperial officials elsewhere. As such, it was adopted as a synonym for Modern Standard Chinese in the 20th century. The term became ambiguous, however, as its use was extended to the various Northern dialects of Chinese.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A Chinese public officer or nobleman; a civil or military official in China and Annam.
  2. noun A small orange, with easily separable rind. It is thought to be of Chinese origin, and is counted a distinct species (Citrus nobilis)mandarin orange; tangerine. Mandarin duck (Zoöl.), a beautiful Asiatic duck (Dendronessa galericulata), often domesticated, and regarded by the Chinese as an emblem of conjugal affection.

Etymology [Pg. mandarim, from Malay mantri minister of state, prop. a Hind. word, fr. Skr. mantrin a counselor, manira a counsel, man to think.]

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