Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iː	see	ɪ	sit	e / ɛ	bed	æ	cat
ɑː	father	ɒ	hot (UK)	ɔː	law	ʊ	put
uː	too	ʌ	cup	ɜː	bird	ə	about
eɪ	day	aɪ	my	ɔɪ	boy	aʊ	now
əʊ / oʊ	go (UK / US)	ɪə	near	eə	hair	ʊə	tour

Consonants that look unusual

θ	thin	ð	this	ʃ	she	ʒ	measure
tʃ	church	dʒ	judge	ŋ	sing	j	yes

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

twenty

UK /ˈtwɛnti/ · US /ˈtwɛnti/ [-ɛɾ̃i] numeral, noun, proper noun

Forms twenties XX

numeral The cardinal number 20, occurring after nineteen and before twenty-one.
noun (in the plural) The numbers twenty (20) to twenty-nine (29). “She looks like she's in her early twenties, perhaps 21 or 22 years old?”
noun (colloquial) A banknote with a denomination of 20. “The waiter’s face lit up when I gave him a twenty.”
noun (CB slang) 10-20 (location). “What’s your twenty, good buddy?”
noun (UK, historical, military) An old English division of infantry.
proper noun A hamlet in Bourne parish, South Kesteven district, Lincolnshire, England (OS grid ref TF1520).

Synonyms

onescore 20 XX twenty dollar bill

Etymology

From Middle English twenty, twenti, from Old English twēntiġ (“twenty”, literally “two tens”), from Proto-Germanic *twaintigiwiz, *twai tigiwiz, an old compound of *twain- (“two”) + *-tigaz (“group of ten”), equivalent to two + -ty, or twain + -ty. Cognate with Scots twenty, tuenty (“twenty”), West Frisian tweintich (“twenty”), Dutch twintig (“twenty”), German zwanzig (“twenty”), Danish tyve.

Apparently named after the Twenty Foot Drain, which no longer exists.

Webster’s 1913

adjective One more that nineteen; twice; as, twenty men.
adjective An indefinite number more or less that twenty. Shak.
noun The number next following nineteen; the sum of twelve and eight, or twice ten; twenty units or objects; a score.
noun A symbol representing twenty units, as 20, or xx.

Etymology [OE. twenty, AS. tw, twentig; akin to OFris. twintich, OS. tw, D. & LG. twintig, OHG. zweinzug, G. zwanzig, Goth. twai tigjis; that is, two tens. See Twain, Two, and Ten.]

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

Sanskrit

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

वैंशतिक vaiṃśatika purchased with twenty.
विंशक viṃśaka twenty, an aggregate of twenty.
चातुर्विंशिक cāturviṃśika belonging to the twenty-fourth day.
विंशिन् viṃśin twenty, a score; a lord of twenty towns.
उत्कृति ut-kṛti a metre of four times twenty-six syllables.
परिविंशत् pari-viṃśat quite twenty, full twenty, twenty at least.
त्रिंशद्विंश triṃśad-viṃśa about twenty or thirty, between twenty and thirty.
संहात saṃhāta one of the twenty-one hells (mentioned in Manu IV. 89).

All 234 Sanskrit matches →