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

sparse

UK /spɑːs/ · US /spɑːɹs/ adjective, verb

Forms sparser sparsest sparses sparsing sparsed

  1. adjective Having widely spaced intervals. “a sparse array, index, or matrix”
  2. adjective Not dense; meager; scanty
  3. adjective (mathematics) Having few nonzero elements
  4. verb (obsolete) To disperse, to scatter.

Synonyms

spread out insufficient thin paltry besprenge broadcast desparple discuss disgregate disparkle disparple dispel disperple disperse distribute dwindle straggle flurr insperse instrew

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sparsus.

Webster’s 1913

  1. adjective Thinly scattered; set or planted here and there; not being dense or close together; as, a sparse population. Carlyle.
  2. adjective Placed irregularly and distantly; scattered; --applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, and the like.
  3. verb To scatter; to disperse. [Obs.] Spenser.

Etymology [L. sparsus, p.p. of spargere to strew, scatter. Cf. Asperse, Disperse.]

Etymology [L. sparsus, p.p. of spargere to scatter.]

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