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

“cuckow” is a form of

cuckoo

UK /ˈkʊkuː/ · US /ˈkuku/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun

Forms cuckoos cuckooing cuckooed

  1. noun Any of various birds, of the family Cuculidae within the order Cuculiformes, famous for laying its eggs in the nests of other species; but especially a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), that has a characteristic two-note call.
  2. noun The sound of that particular bird.
  3. noun The bird-shaped figure found in cuckoo clocks.
  4. noun The cuckoo clock itself.
  5. noun A person who inveigles themselves into a place where they should not be (used especially in the phrase a cuckoo in the nest).
  6. noun (slang) Someone who is crazy.
  7. verb To make the call of a cuckoo.
  8. verb To repeat something incessantly.
  9. verb (UK, law enforcement) To take over the home of a vulnerable person for the purposes of carrying out organized crime in a concealed way.
  10. adjective (slang) Crazy; not sane. “I think I'm going cuckoo!”
  11. proper noun A locality in Dorset council area, north eastern Tasmania, Australia.

Synonyms

cuckoo bird ku ku bird parrot fathead goof goofball bozo jackass goose twat zany

Etymology

From Middle English cokkou, kokkow, cukkuk, gokkouȝ, probably from Old French cocu, coquu, cucu (whence French coucou); ultimately onomatopoeic of the song of the male Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), perhaps via Latin cucūlus (“cuckoo”).
Compare dialectal English gowkoo (“cuckoo”). Displaced Middle English gnokken (“cuckoo”) and native Middle English yeke, ȝek (from Old English ġēac (“cuckoo”)), see English gowk.
The UK sense is by analogy from the bird's practice of brood parasitism.
The Malaysian and Singaporean sense is a calque of Hokkien 咕咕鳥 /咕咕鸟 (ku-kú-chiáu)

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A bird belonging to Cuculus, Coccyzus, and several allied genera, of many species.

Etymology [OE. coccou, cukkow, F. coucou, prob. of imitative origin; cf. L. cuculus, Gr. k, G. kuckuk, D. koekoek.]

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

Sanskrit

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

All 89 Sanskrit matches →