dictionary
/ˈdɪkʃ(ə)n(ə)ri
/noun (plural dictionaries)
1A book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language (typically in alphabetical order) and gives their meaning, or gives the equivalent words in a different language, often also providing information about pronunciation, origin, and usage: I’ll look up ‘love’ in the dictionary the website gives access to an online dictionary [as modifier]: the dictionary definition of ‘smile’...
- Apart from in books and dictionaries it was a word that was hardly heard.
- Mark Twain claimed never to have coined a word as far as he knew, though historical dictionaries list him as the first user of many.
- The latest dictionary contains new words and phrases that sum up life in the UK today.
Synonyms
lexicon, wordbook, glossary, vocabulary list, vocabulary, word list, wordfinder
1.1A reference book on a particular subject, the items of which are typically arranged in alphabetical order: a dictionary of quotations...
- Instead I had to settle for a couple of old-fashioned dictionaries of quotations.
- The standard dictionaries of English quotations don't have a single Indian entry.
- Save for a brief quotation from a dictionary of folklore, I have so far neglected Anglo-Saxon attitudes.
1.2 Computing A set of words or other text strings made for use in applications such as spellcheckers: the worm attempts to crack account passwords using a built-in dictionary...
- If it finds something in your text that isn't in the dictionary, you are offered a list of alternatives you can include instead.
- There are tools on the Internet that use dictionaries of common words and phrases to crack a password.
- I wanted to remove the misspelled word from the dictionary, but couldn't figure out how to do it.
Phrases
have swallowed a dictionary
Origin
Early 16th century: from medieval Latin dictionarium (manuale) or dictionarius (liber) 'manual or book of words', from Latin dictio (see diction).
lexicon from early 17th century:
While a dictionary (early 16th century) goes back to the Latin dicere ‘to speak’, lexicon comes from Greek lexikon (biblion) ‘(book) of words’, from lexis ‘word’, from legein ‘speak’.