Using a Dictionary

When you really understand how to use them, dictionaries are wonderful resources. If you think a dictionary is full of nonsensical squiggles and words, then you might benefit from a crash course in using dictionaries. If you follow these steps to use the dictionary, you will have no problem researching with it.

Make up your mind about what you want to search for. As you know, dictionaries have their contents organized alphabetically. You need to know what letter of the alphabet to start at to be able to use them. So, take notice of the first letter of that word.

Get the dictionary open to the correct letter. To get to the word you want to look up in the dictionary, turn to that first letter in the dictionary. All words in the dictionary are in alphabetical order. As an example, keep looking until you reach the section devoted to ‘R’ words, which will be found toward the back of the dictionary.

When looking for the section of the dictionary which contains all of the words that begin with R, look at the top corners of the page for the guide. What you will see there are words called ‘guide words’. These will tell you the first word to be found on the page (top of the left-hand page) and the last word to be found in that opening will be on the top of the right-hand page. Consider whether it comes before, after or within the two guide words listed at the top of the page. (Sometimes a dictionary will have a ‘hole’ at each letter – place your finger in the ‘hole’ of the letter your word starts with, and instantly flip to that section.)

Look carefully at each letter in the word when you start to search the section. We have the first letter, now we need to look further into the word to help you find the right section of the dictionary you want to use. So, look at the next letter in the word you are looking up. If we use the word ‘rug’ as an example, you are already in the ‘R’ section.

That’s good. Now you must begin looking for words that begin with ‘RU’, just as rug does. So that means that you can pass the words starting with ‘RA’, ‘RB’, ‘RC’ words and so on until you reach the ‘RU’ words.

Now check the third letter of the word you are trying to find. Once you have found the RU on the top corner of the page you should then begin to look for the actual word ‘rug’. Flick through the next few pages to find the word ‘RUG’.

Read the meaning of the word. You will find that every word in a dictionary has something more to tell about the word than how to spell it or its meaning. The first thing you will see is the properly spelled word and then the word broken down into its syllables The dictionary uses special symbols to show how you would pronounce particular letters in a word. Right at the beginning pages of a dictionary you will find an explanation of how how soft, hard and unique letters are denoted. Sometime there will be two different pronunciations for one word and these will be listed at the beginning of the word entry.

Now you need to find the definition of the word. Some words have more than one meaning. Think about the word you are looking up and what it means within the sentence it is in. There will also be synonyms (words that similar to your word) and antonyms (words that are opposite of the word you looked up). Some dictionaries will also give a history of the word, its origin, and a phrase or sentence that uses the word properly.

You have now successfully used a dictionary to find a word description that matches the word you were attempting to look up.

Tiffany Provost writes about dictionary and educational tips for HowToDoThings.com.