How a Dictionary is Organized

Slide show about how a dictionary is organized.

1. Chapter 1
How is a Dictionary
Organized?

2. Dictionaries are books
that list all the words in a
language.

3. 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.

4. Since there are so many
words in a dictionary,
guide words are used to
help you locate a word
quickly.
What are guide words?

5. Guide words are found at
the top of each page. They
tell you the first and last
word that is found on that
page.

6. 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.

7. Let’s see what that means-
Let’s pretend we are
looking up the word,
science. First we would
turn to the S section.

8. Then we would use the
guide words and what we
know about alphabetizing
words to decide the
correct page in the S
section.

9. 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.

10. Let’s do that for the
word science-
Which one of these pages
would contain the word
science?

11. The page with the guide words-
stamp - summer
Or the page with the guide words-
sandwich - seventy
science

12. Chapter 2
Dictionary Definitions
What do they mean?

13. 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.

14. Today, we’re going to
learn what each part of a
definition means.

15. This is a definition for flag:
flag (flag)
1. noun A piece of cloth with a
pattern or symbol of a
country, an organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal.
We flagged down the police
officer.

16. flag (flag)
1. noun A piece of cloth with a
pattern or symbol of a
country, an organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal.
We flagged down the police
officer.
The word being defined
is followed by the
pronunciation in
parenthesis.

17. flag (flag)
1. noun A piece of cloth with a
pattern or symbol of a
country, an organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal.
We flagged down the police
officer.
The first word tells the word’s
part of speech

18. 1. noun A piece of cloth with a
pattern or symbol of a
country, an organization, etc.
2. verb To stop, or to signal.
We flagged down the police
officer.
The next section is the actual
definition of the word.

19. 1. noun A piece of cloth with a
pattern or symbol of a
country, an organization, etc.
1. 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.

20. Let’s see what you’ve 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.

21. book (buk)
1. noun A set of pages that are
bound together.
2. verb To arrange for
something ahead of time.
We’ve booked a vacation in
Mexico.

22. Now you know the
definition of
definition!