English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. English Essentials John Langan Beth Johnson Chapter Thirty-Seven Dictionary Use

English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 Using the Dictionary SpellingSpelling SyllabicationSyllabication PronunciationPronunciation Parts of SpeechParts of Speech Principal Parts of Irregular VerbsPrincipal Parts of Irregular Verbs Plural Forms of Irregular NounsPlural Forms of Irregular Nouns MeaningsMeanings EtymologyEtymology Usage LabelsUsage Labels SynonymsSynonyms The dictionary is a valuable tool. To take advantage of it, you need to understand the main kinds of information the dictionary gives about a word:

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 Spelling The first bit of information, in boldface, is the spelling of murder. You probably already know the spelling of murder, but if you didn’t, you could find it by pronouncing the syllables in the word carefully and then looking it up in the dictionary.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Syllabication The second bit of information, also in boldface, is the syllabication of murder. A dot separates the syllables.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 Pronunciation The third bit of information is the pronunciation of murder. You probably already know how to pronounce murder, but if you didn’t, the information here would serve as your guide.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 Parts of Speech The next bit of information is the part(s) of speech of murder. M urder can function both as a noun (n.) and a verb (v.).

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 7 Principal Parts of Irregular Verbs When it functions as a verb, murder is a regular verb: it forms its principal parts by adding -ed, -ed, and -ing to the stem (murder). When the verb is irregular, the dictionary will lists its principal parts.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 8 Plural Forms of Irregular Nouns When it functions as a noun, murder is a regular noun: it forms the plural by adding -s (murders). When the noun is irregular, the dictionary will supply its plural forms.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 9 Meanings When a word has more than one meaning, the meanings are numbered, usually with the most common meaning listed first. According to this entry, the verb murder has three distinct meanings.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 10 Etymology Etymology refers to the origin and historical development of a word. Such information is usually enclosed in brackets. OE here stands for Old English: murder derives from the Old English morthor. Consult the list of abbreviations in your dictionary as necessary.

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 11 Usage Labels If a word is not standard English, your dictionary will probably give it a usage label like these: slang; informal; nonstandard; vulgar; obsolete; etc. This entry provides one slang meaning for murder. (Remember that you should as a rule use only standard English words in your writing.)

Dictionary Use English Essentials ©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 Synonyms A synonym is a word that is close in meaning to another word. Using synonyms helps you avoid unnecessary repetition in your writing. A good desk dictionary will provide synonyms for many words; you can also consult a thesaurus, a book that lists synonyms and antonyms (words that are the opposite in meaning).