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

pluperfect

UK /pluːˈpɜː.fɪkt/ · US /pluˈpɝ.fɪkt/ adjective, noun

Forms pluperfects plpf.

  1. adjective More than perfect, utterly perfect, ideal.
  2. adjective (grammar) Pertaining to action completed before another action or event in the past, past perfect.
  3. adjective (graph theory) Being or relating to a certain type of graph that complies with a theorem ("pluperfect graph theorem") discovered by D. R. Fulkerson in 1970, satisfying even more constraints than a perfect graph.
  4. adjective (mathematics) Synonym of multiperfect.
  5. adjective (informal) Used as an intensifier in various interjections. “What in the pluperfect hell is going on here?!”
  6. noun The pluperfect tense, the past perfect.
  7. noun A verb in this tense.

Synonyms

multiperfect plusquamperfect preterpluperfect past perfect past perfect tense pluperfect tense

Etymology

Shortening of plusquamperfect, from Latin plusquamperfectum (“more than perfect”), from plus (“more”) + quam (“than”) + perfectum, neuter singular of perfectus (“achieved; finished; perfected”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective More than perfect; past perfect; --said of the tense which denotes that an action or event was completed at or before the time of another past action or event.
  2. adjective The pluperfect tense; also, a verb in the pluperfect tense.

Etymology [L. plus more + perfectus perfect; cf. F. plus-que-parfait, L. plusquamperfectum.]

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