How is a Dictionary Organized?

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Chapter 1 How is a Dictionary Organized?
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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 and then use what you know about
alphabetizing words to decide if your word would
be found on that page.
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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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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!