Dictionary entries come in various sizes, with various levels of detail provided. We'll tackle longer Dictionary entries in this article. For other article types, see:
- For short entries, see: How to Read a Short Dictionary Entry
- For Dictionary pages with multiple entries, see: How to Read Pages with More than One Entry
There are two simple actions to help you find what you are looking for: scrolling and expanding. Let’s see how this can help you locate information on the page in three scenarios: a short entry (one with one single definition), a longer entry (with many definitions), and a very long page (where several entries are found together because two or more different words are spelled and pronounced exactly like each other).
Tour of a Longer Entry
The Headword and the Pronunciation
Like in a short entry, the headword is at the top in bold, followed by the pronunciation in square brackets. You can toggle from the phonetically spelled pronunciation to the pronunciation that uses the International Phonetic Alphabet characters. There is a speaker icon to hear the word pronounced.
Part of Speech and the Definition
A longer entry may have multiple parts of speech and many definitions for each part of speech. The word ‘film’ for example, has eight primary definitions for how the word is used as a noun. Some of those have subsenses (related senses that share a definition number).
If you are looking for the most common or most frequent definition in general use, it will probably be one of these first two definitions. The most frequent definitions and those that express core meanings are found at the top of the list.
The first 2 definitions for the part of speech show by default. So if you are looking for a more specialized meaning, or if you just don’t see what you were looking for, you will need to click 'See More' to expand the noun part of speech to see all of the noun meanings.
Examples
Some definitions are followed by example text in italics. Examples can help you to see how a word is typically used with that meaning. Examples can also be used in the opposite direction. If you know how you’ve seen a word used and you need to know which of several meanings is the one defining that use, it’s sometimes easier to start with the example. Do you mean ‘film’ in the sense of a thin coating or do you mean it like a sheet of something, not necessarily attached to anything else? Well, look at the examples, and decide if the film you are trying to describe is more like grease coating a plate or more like a thin sheet of ice. With those examples in mind, the difference between two similar-sounding definitions may be easier to see.
Subject Specific Labels
When a meaning belongs to a certain domain of interest, like botany, cooking, photography, or politics, the definition will begin with a label. Remember that the most common and general definitions for a headword will be the first ones. The specialized uses are further down. So, if you know that you are looking for a meaning of ‘film’ that is used in movies, you can skip right past the general meanings, click See More to show the rest of the definitions, and then skim until you see the Movies label.
Interactive Dictionary.com content
After all of the definitions for all of the parts of speech categories where the headword has meaning, the next thing you will see is interactive content, like a Quiz. You can play with that content, or you can keep scrolling. There is more information about the headword that follows the interactive content.
Origin of the Word
The origin of the word, also called the etymology, is the next section of this dictionary entry. If the date when the headword was first used is known, you’ll find it here. Some words have dates when specific meanings for the word are first documented, and those may be shown too. If it is a word that comes to English from another language (like French) and even another era in the development of a language (like Middle French or Old French), then you can follow along from the most recent form and language to the oldest form and language where there is evidence of this word.
Synonyms
After the etymology, some definitions may have synonyms listed. These are not synonyms for the headword in general; rather, they are sorted to correspond to a particular sense. For example, the synonyms mist, haze, cloud, and veil only apply to definition 11 of ‘film’. This is indicated by the number preceding the list of synonyms, which corresponds to the definition numbering above.
Other Words from this Headword
Toward the end of an entry you’ll see a list of derived forms that contain or are based on the headword. These words can usually be understood with the definition of the headword and some knowledge about common affixes (like un-, non-, pre-, -ness) used in combination with the headword. If you find an affix (an element added to the root) that you aren’t familiar with, you can look it up because the prefixes and suffixes used in the derived words are also themselves headwords in the dictionary.
Nearby Words
Finally, in a simple entry, a list of nearby words in alphabetical order will probably be the last of the content directly associated with the headword. In an online dictionary or mobile app, you can obviously jump between any words you want to. But, because families of words that share an origin and similar spelling are often of interest when learning about a related word, the Words Nearby section gives you the chance to see what is around your headword and bump into more content that might interest you.
Editorial Content Related to the Headword
If there are editorial articles or deep dives into the headword or subjects that are related to the headword, that additional content can also be found toward the end of the entry.
Words Related to the Headword
This section contains terms that are semantically related to the headword.
Example Sentences from the Web
Definitions that have example sentences right there at the definition level are written by our lexicographers to help you pick out the subtle differences between definitions or see combinations and expressions that are typical and frequent. However, the example sentences in this section are pulled directly from web pages and are simply examples of the headword found “in the wild,” the way people are using it in their everyday speaking and writing.