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

chess

/t͡ʃɛs/ noun, proper noun

Forms chesses

  1. noun A board game for two players, each beginning with sixteen chess pieces moving according to fixed rules across a chessboard with the objective to checkmate the opposing king.
  2. noun (now chiefly US) Any of several species of grass in the genus Bromus, generally considered weeds.
  3. noun (military, chiefly in the plural) One of the platforms, consisting of two or more planks dowelled together, for the flooring of a temporary military bridge.
  4. proper noun A surname.
  5. proper noun A river in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, England, which joins the Colne at Rickmansworth.

Synonyms

international chess Western chess cheat Bromus secalinus chess game

Etymology

From Middle English ches, chesse, from Old French eschés, plural of eschec, from Medieval Latin scaccus, from Arabic شَاه (šāh, “king [in chess]”), from Classical Persian شاه (šāh, “shah, king”), from Middle Persian 𐭬𐭫𐭪𐭠 (mlkʾ /⁠šāh⁠/), from Old Persian 𐏋 (XŠ /⁠xšāyaθiya⁠/).
Compare German Schach and Italian scacchi. Compare French échecs (“chess”) and its descendants: Catalan escacs and Dutch schaak. More at check and shah (“king of Persia or Iran”).

Uncertain; perhaps linked to Etymology 1, above, from the sense of being arranged in rows or lines.

Compare French châssis (“a framework of carpentry”).

The river name is a back-formation from Chesham, a town at the head of the river.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A game played on a chessboard, by two persons, with two differently colored sets of men, sixteen in each set. Each player has a king, a queen, two bishops, two knights, two castles or rooks, and eight pawns.
  2. noun A species of brome grass (Bromus secalinus) which is a troublesome weed in wheat flelds, and is often erroneously regarded as degenerate or changed wheat; it bears a very slight resemblance to oats, and if reaped and ground up with wheat, so as to be used for food, is said to produce narcotic effects; --called also cheat and Willard's bromus. [U. S.]

Etymology [OE. ches, F. échecs, prop. pl. of échec check. See 1st Check.]

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

Sanskrit

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

All 19 Sanskrit matches →