| i | iː | fleece |
| I | ɪ | kit |
| I@ | ɪə | near |
| e | e | dress |
| eI | eɪ | face |
| e@ | eə | square |
| & | æ | trap |
| aI | aɪ | price |
| aU | aʊ | mouth |
| A | ɑː | palm |
| V | ʌ | strut |
| 0 (zero) | ɒ | lot |
| O (cap oh) | ɔː | north/force |
| @U | əʊ | goat |
| U@ | ʊə | cure |
| U | ʊ | foot |
| u | uː | goose |
| 3 | ɜː | nurse |
| N | ŋ | sing |
| T | θ | think |
| D | ð | the |
| S | ʃ | ship |
| Z | ʒ | azure |
| tS | ʧ | chip |
| dZ | ʤ | job |
| R | jar | |
| ' | ˈ | primary stress |
| ; | ˌ | secondary stress |
| !O | any obstruent |
| !P | any plosive |
| !A | any affricate |
| !B | any sibilant |
| !F | any fricative |
| !S | any sonorant consonant |
| !N | any nasal |
| !L | any liquid (l, r, R) |
| !G | any glide (j, w, h) |
| !V | any vowel |
| !Y | any full/stressed vowel (incl. reduced /ɪ/) |
| !W | any long vowel/diphthong |
| !X | any short stressed vowel (incl. reduced /ɪ/) |
| !v | any unstressed vowel (/ə/ and /ɪ/ —even if full) |
| !C | any consonant |
classes (except !B, !Y, !X, !W) can be negated, e.g., !~N = any nonnasal
# = string boundary (no internal word-boundaries!)
This option means “find items that do not match the given pattern.” Note that this is different from negating a symbol: !~C matches any item containing a nonconsonant, but negated !C matches only items that do not contain a consonant at all.
| expression | meaning |
| . | any one character |
| a? | zero or one a |
| a* | any number of a's (including 0) |
| a+ | any number of, but at least one a |
| [abc] | one character: a or b or c (not for !sets) |
| (tS|dZ|S|Z) | ʧ or ʤ or ʃ or ʒ |
| (!F|!N) | any fricative or nasal |
| [abc]+ | one or more characters of the given set |
| [^efg] | anything but e or f or g |