Term
corymb
Corymb ends in a letter almost nobody says and begins with one that could be a k. Between them sits a y doing the work of an i. Six letters, three of them arguable.
Greek korymbos meant a cluster, or the topmost point of something, and Latin took it as corymbus. English clipped the ending and left a b standing at the end of the word where English does not pronounce it. The y is upsilon again, saying a short i.
- Say
- KORR-im, with the b usually silent
- Letters
- C-O-R-Y-M-B
- Root
- Greek korymbos, via Latin corymbus, a cluster
- Meaning
- A corymb is a flat-topped flower cluster. The lower stalks are longer than the upper ones, so the flowers all open at roughly the same height. Yarrow and candytuft are corymbs.
6 spellings people arrive at by ear
- korymba hard c
- coriemby doing the work of i
- coreembtwo changes at once
- corimby doing the work of i
- corimtwo changes at once
- curymban unstressed vowel