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

we

UK /wiː/ · US /wi/ pronoun, determiner

Forms us our ours ourselves ourself WEs

  1. pronoun Excluding the person(s) being addressed. (This is the exclusive we.) “We are here to arrest you.”
  2. pronoun Including the person(s) being addressed. (This is the inclusive we.) “We need to have a talk, you and me.”
  3. pronoun The institution which the speaker/writer is acting for. (This is the editorial we, used by writers and others when speaking with the authority of their publication or organisation.) “We will in due course state our reasons for publishing the name of the accused.”
  4. pronoun Any other entity that the speaker is a part of or identifies with, such as place of employment or education, nation, region, language, etc. “I went to watch our school football match against Puddletown High. We lost 2-0.”
  5. pronoun People in general. “We live and learn.”
  6. pronoun (royal) The sovereign alone in his or her capacity as monarch. (This is the royal we. The reflexive case of this sense of we is ourself.) “We are Queen of all these Isles.”
  7. pronoun (colloquial) Everyone being addressed. “Good evening everyone. How are we all tonight?”
  8. pronoun (colloquial; may sometimes seem patronising) An individual being addressed; used especially to a person in the speaker's care, or to whom advice or instruction is being given. (Sometimes called the nurse's we or the doctor's we.) “Hello Mrs Miggins. How are we feeling this morning?”
  9. determiner Designates the speaker(s)/writer(s) as belonging to or constituting the stated category of people. “We Canadians like to think of ourselves as different.”
  10. pronoun (Geordie) us “He was a propa gadgie, and always bought we drinks after a long shift.”

Antonyms

they

Etymology

From Middle English we, from Old English wē (“we”), from Proto-West Germanic *wiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *wīz, *wiz (“we”), from Proto-Indo-European *wéy (“we (plural)”). Cognate with Scots wee, we (“we”), North Frisian we (“we”), West Frisian wy (“we”), Low German wi (“we”), Dutch we, wij (“we”), German wir (“we”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian vi (“we”), Icelandic vér, við (“we”), Avestan 𐬬𐬀𐬉𐬨 (vaēm), Sanskrit वयम् (vayám).

Webster’s 1913

  1. pronoun The plural nominative case of the pronoun of the first person; the word with which a person in speaking or writing denotes a number or company of which he is one, as the subject of an action expressed by a verb.

Etymology [As. w; akin to OS. wi, OFries. & LG. wi, D. wij, G. wir, Icel. v, Sw. & Dan. vi, Goth. weis, Skr. vayam. sq. root190.]

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