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

vowel

/ˈvaʊ.əl/ noun, verb

Forms vowels voweling vowelling voweled vowelled

  1. noun (phonetics) A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable. “Hawaiian has either five or twenty-five vowels, depending on how they are counted.”
  2. noun (orthography) A letter or diacritic representing the sound of a vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y (sometimes), and w (rarely). “The word facetiously is spelled with all six vowels in alphabetical order.”
  3. verb (linguistics) To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic).

Synonyms

vowelize vocalize vowel sound

Antonyms

consonant

Etymology

From Middle English vowel, from Old French vouel, a variant of voyeul (whence French voyelle), from Latin vōcālis (“voiced”), itself a semantic loan of Koine Greek φωνῆεν (phōnêen). Doublet of vocal and vocalis.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun A vocal, or sometimes a whispered, sound modified by resonance in the oral passage, the peculiar resonance in each case giving to each several vowel its distinctive character or quality as a sound of speech; --distinguished from a consonant in that the latter, whether made with or without vocality, derives its character in every case from some kind of obstructive action by the mouth organs. Also, a letter or character which represents such a sound. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 5, 146-149.
  2. adjective Of or pertaining to a vowel; vocal.

Etymology [F. voyelle, or an OF. form without y, L. vocalis (sc. littera), from vocalis sounding, from vox, vocis, a voice, sound. See Vocal.]

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

Sanskrit

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

All 78 Sanskrit matches →