The many uses of a dictionary

Most of us think of the dictionary, whether in book form or electronic, as the go-to tool for looking up the correct spelling of a word. Whether we are writing an essay, playing Scrabble, or just want to settle an argument with an annoying sibling, it is the first place we look. Dictionaries are great for indicating if a word should be capitalized or accented. They even provide variant spellings and let you know which one is the most common. However, dictionaries do have other uses than just that of an old-school spell checker.

In addition to spelling, the dictionary gives you the definition or meaning of a word. If you are reading a textbook, novel, or poem and come across a word you are not familiar with and cannot work out from the context, just look it up. If it is a word you have seen written, but never heard spoken, many dictionaries also provide you with pronunciation keys. They also tell you what part of speech a word is, for example, whether it is a noun, a verb, an adjective, etc. This can be very useful for doing your English homework.

Ever wonder what the history of a word is? Perhaps it looks similar to another English word you know, or even a word from another language such as French or Spanish. Some of the larger dictionaries will provide the etymology, or the origin, of the words in them, telling you what language they come from, how they were originally spelled, and when and where they were first used.

Of course dictionaries are also great vocabulary builders. If you open yours at random each day, select the first word you don not know, write it out and memorize it, you will add to your vocabulary in no time.

So the next time you are stumped by a word definition or want to know the history of a word, reach for the nearest dictionary to provide you with the information you need.