Wily Words: Words Whose Pronunciation Has Changed Over Time

As languages change, so do pronunciations. Here are some words that have gone through relatively recent shifts in pronunciation or whose spelling is a mystery unless one knows a bit about the history of how they were pronounced. There are also a few words where the only thing that has changed is the stress of the syllables. In most cases, rhyming words or phrases, which are just useful for their sound and are not intended to mean anything, are given to provide a sense of how these different pronunciations sounded.