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

brake

/bɹeɪk/ noun, verb, proper noun

Also a form of break

Forms brakes braking braked break

  1. noun A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or aerodynamic drag, can also be used); also, the controls or apparatus used to engage such a mechanism such as the pedal in a car. “She slammed the brakes when she saw a child run in front of the car.”
  2. noun The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle “Give the car a quick brake.”
  3. noun (engineering) An apparatus for testing the power of a steam engine or other motor by weighing the amount of friction that the motor will overcome; a friction brake.
  4. noun (figuratively) Something used to retard or stop some action, process etc.
  5. noun (military) An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
  6. noun (obsolete) The winch of a crossbow.
  7. noun (chiefly nautical) The handle of a pump.
  8. noun A baker’s kneading trough.
  9. verb (intransitive) To operate a brake or brakes.
  10. verb (intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.
  11. noun Any fern in the genus Pteris.
  12. noun Bracken (Pteridium spp.).
  13. noun A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc.
  14. noun A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)
  15. noun (agriculture) A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods of earth after ploughing; a drag.
  16. noun (textiles) A tool used for breaking flax or hemp.
  17. verb (transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead. “The farmer’s son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough”
  18. verb (transitive) To pulverise with a harrow.
  19. noun (obsolete) A cage.
  20. noun (now historical) A type of torture instrument.

Synonyms

swipe trave cataract bracken pasture brake Pteridium aquilinum

Antonyms

floor it put the pedal to the metal redline accelerate

Etymology

Origin uncertain; possibly from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German brake (“nose ring, curb, flax brake”), which according to Watkins is related to sense 4 and from Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”).

Apparently a shortened form of bracken. (Compare chick, chicken.)

From Old English *bracu, attested in a plural compound form fearnbraca (“thickets of fern”), probably from Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”) and influenced by sense 2 (“fern”). Compare Middle Low German brake (“stump, branch”).

Late Middle English, from Middle Low German brake, Dutch braak, Old Dutch braeke; possibly related to sense 1.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb of Break. [Arhaic] Tennyson.
  2. noun A fern of the genus Pteris, esp. the P. aquilina, common in almost all countries. It has solitary stems dividing into three principal branches. Less properly: Any fern.
  3. noun A thicket; a place overgrown with shrubs and brambles, with undergrowth and ferns, or with canes.
  4. noun An instrument or machine to break or bruise the woody part of flax or hemp so that it may be separated from the fiber.

Etymology [OE. brake fern; cf. AS. bracce fern, LG. brake willow bush, Da. bregne fern, G. brach fallow; prob. orig. the growth on rough, broken ground, fr. the root of E. break. See Break, v. t., cf. Bracken, and 2d Brake, n.]

Etymology [OE. brake; cf. LG. brake an instrument for breaking flax, G. breche, fr. the root of E. break. See Break, v. t., and cf. Breach.]

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