By Dr. Arlene S. Opina

The DictionaryThe Best Source of Words

Dictionary• also called a lexicon, wordbook,

or vocabulary, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information.

The Two Kinds of Dictionaries 1. Descriptive - describe the language. They include

words that are commonly used even if they are nonstandard. They will often include nonstandard spellings. Ex. Merriam-Webster, Times-Mirror, World Book, and Funk and Wagnall's.

2. Prescriptive - tend to be more concerned about correct or standard English. They prescribe the proper usage and spelling of words. Ex. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755) had social commentary and jokes; American Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

Why do we use dictionaries?

• To learn new words• To learn the origin of a word• To check the meaning of a word• To check the parts of speech of a word• To learn multiple meanings of a word• To learn to pronounce a word• To construct a sentence using the word

Parts of the Dictionary

Parts of the Dictionary

Parts of the Dictionary

Trivia• The earliest modern European

dictionaries were bilingual dictionaries.

• Akkadian empire cuneiform tablets (with bilingual Sumerian–Akkadian wordlists) - The oldest known dictionaries, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria) and dated roughly 2300 BCE

First English Dictionary

• The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604. The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Noah Webster• In 1806, American,

published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. • It took him twenty-seven years to complete “An American

Dictionary of the English Language.” To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit.• At the age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840, the second edition was published in two volumes.

Major English dictionaries• A Dictionary of the English Langua

ge by Samuel Johnson (prescriptive)

• The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

• Black's Law Dictionary, a law dictionary

• Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

• Canadian Oxford Dictionary• Century Dictionary• Chambers Dictionary• Collins English Dictionary• Concise Oxford English Dictionary• Longman

• Macquarie Dictionary, a dictionary of Australian English

• Merriam-Webster• New Oxford Dictionary of English• Oxford Dictionary of English• Oxford English Dictionary

(descriptive)• Random House Dictionary of the E

nglish Language• Noah Webster's An American

Dictionary of the English Language (prescriptive)

• Webster's Dictionary (descriptive)• Webster's New World Dictionary

Quizzes

• http://library.thinkquest.org/5585/dictionary.htm

• http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=dictionary-quiz