Transcript How is a Dictionary Organized?

How is a
Dictionary
Organized?
Adapted from Faye Humbard’s version found online – revised December 2008
by Diana Knight
Dictionaries are books that
list all the words in a
language.
Dictionary words are organized in
alphabetical order.
To use a dictionary easily, you must
know how to alphabetize words.
Since there are so many words in
a dictionary, guide words are used
to help you locate a word quickly.
What are guide words?
Guide words are
found at the top of
each page.
They tell you the
first and last word
that is found on that
page.
How do guide words help you
find a word quickly?
•Instead of looking at each word on a
page, which could take forever, you just
look at the guide words.
•Then use what you know about
alphabetizing words to decide if your
word would be found on that page.
Let’s see what that means. . .
Let’s pretend we
are looking up
the word, science.
First we would
turn to the S
section.
Then we would use the guide
words and what we know about
alphabetizing words to decide
the correct page in the S section.
We would look at the guide words at
the top of each page and decide
between which ones our word would
come in alphabetical order.
Let’s do that for the word
science . . .
Which one of these pages
would contain the word
science?
science
The page with the guide words-
stamp - summer
Or the page with the guide words-
sandwich - seventy
Dictionary Definitions
What do they mean?
Have you ever
looked up the
definition for a
word in the
dictionary?
If so, then you might have
been confused by some of the
parts of that definition.
Today, we’re
going to learn
what each part
of a definition
means.
This is a definition for flag:
flag (flag)
1. noun A piece of cloth with a pattern
or symbol of a country, an
organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged
down the police officer.
flag (flag)
word
being
1. noun AThe
piece
of cloth
withdefined
a
the
patternisorfollowed
symbol ofby
a country,
an
pronunciation
in
organization,
etc.
parenthesis.
2. verb To stop, or to signal. We
flagged down the police officer.
The first word tells the word’s
part of speech
flag (flag)
1. noun A piece of cloth with a pattern
or symbol of a country, an
organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged
down the police officer.
The next section is the actual
definition of the word.
1. noun A piece of cloth with a
pattern or symbol of a country, an
organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal. We
flagged down the police officer.
Finally, you might see a sentence
showing
how
the of
word
is used.
1. noun A
piece
cloth
with a
Especially
use is not
pattern if
orthe
symbol
of athe
country,
most common for the word.
an organization, etc.
1. verb To stop, or to signal. We
flagged down the police officer.
Let’s see what you’ve learned!
mischief (miss-chif)
noun Playful behavior that may
cause annoyance or harm to others.
My brother is always up to some
sort of mischief.
book (buk)
1. noun A set of pages that are
bound together.
2. verb To arrange for something
ahead of time. We’ve booked a
vacation in Mexico.
Now you know the
definition of definition!