English dictionaries
There are probably more than 250,000 English words. Pocket-sized dictionaries have only the most common words in them. Most English dictionaries will tell you what a word means and what class of word it is, eg a noun, a verb or an adjective.
Foreign language dictionaries
A foreign language dictionary tells you how to say a word or a phrase in a language other than your own. It does not tell you what the words mean.
I like to ride my bike.
Me gusta andar en bicicleta.
In the example above you are told how to say 'I like to ride my bike' in Spanish.
Thesauruses
A girl jumping up for the word joy
If you look up a word in a thesaurus you will be given a list of similar words that may be more suitable for what you are trying to say.
Happy
cheerful, content, thrilled, jumping for joy
Use a thesaurus to make your writing more interesting and less repetitive. Avoid using the same word over and over again.
Specialist dictionaries
Specialist dictionaries concentrate on a particular subject. For example, you can get dictionaries of science, animals and history. They include information on the words, phrases, people and things related to the subject.
stem, leaf and root labelled on diagram of plant
Illustrated dictionaries
Illustrated dictionaries include illustrations to help show what the words mean. Specialist dictionaries are often illustrated. For example, a dictionary of plants may be illustrated to show the reader what each plant looks like and what the parts of the plants are called.
Electronic dictionaries
The most widely used electronic dictionaries are found on the Internet. Finding a word is easy, you type the word into a search box, press enter, and the results are shown. There is often an option to hear how the word is pronounced (what it sounds like) too.
Finding information in a dictionary
All dictionaries arrange their information alphabetically. Each piece of information is called an entry.
For example, in an English dictionary you’ll find words beginning with a at the front, and z at the back. Because there are lots of words beginning with a each letter that follows decides which word comes first. For example, ant will come after ankle because the first two letters are the same but the third letter is different, and t comes after k in the alphabet.
To find the word sunny start by finding words beginning with s, then su, then sun until you eventually narrow it down to sunny.
A person looking up the word Sunny in a dictionary
Electronic dictionaries
To find a word in an electronic dictionary you type it into a search box. The results will tell you everything a printed dictionary does. You can still browse through each letter if you want to.
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