How is a Dictionary Organized?

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How is a Dictionary Organized? Created for middle
school by Debra Evetts
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Dictionaries are books that list all the words in
a language.
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To make dictionaries easier to use, the words are
organized in alphabetical order. So to use a
dictionary easily, you must know how to
alphabetize words.
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Since there are so many words in a dictionary,
guide words are used to help you locate a word
quickly.
What are guide words?
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Guide words are found at the top of each page.
They tell you the first and last word that is
found on that page.
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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.
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Lets see what that means-
Lets pretend we are looking up the word,
science. First we would turn to the S section.
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Then we would use the guide words and what we
know about alphabetizing words to decide the
correct page in the S section.
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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.
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Lets do that for the word science- Which one of
these pages would contain the word science?
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science
The page with the guide words- stamp - summer
Or the page with the guide words- sandwich -
seventy
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The correct answer is

• sandwich - seventy

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Chapter 2 Dictionary Definitions What do they
mean?
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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.
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Today, were going to learn what each part of a
definition means.
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This is a definition for flag

• flag (flag)
• noun A piece of cloth with a pattern or symbol
  of a country, an organization, etc.
• verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged down the
  police officer.

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• flag (flag)
• noun A piece of cloth with a pattern or symbol
  of a country, an organization, etc.
• verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged down the
  police officer.

The word being defined is followed by the
pronunciation in parenthesis.
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The first word tells the words part of speech

• flag (flag)
• noun A piece of cloth with a pattern or symbol
  of a country, an organization, etc.
• verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged down the
  police officer.

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The next section is the actual definition of the
word.

• noun A piece of cloth with a pattern or symbol
  of a country, an organization, etc.
• verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged down the
  police officer.

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• noun A piece of cloth with a pattern or symbol
  of a country, an organization, etc.
• verb To stop, or to signal. We flagged down the
  police officer.

Finally, you might see a sentence showing how the
word is used. Especially if the use is not the
most common for the word.
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Lets see what youve 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.
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• book (buk)
• noun A set of pages that are bound together.
• verb To arrange for something ahead of time.
  Weve booked a vacation in Mexico.

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Now you know the definition of definition!