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NAVIGATING the Collegiate Dictionary:
Looking up a Word

Big, fat book

Finding the definition of a word may be a little tricky depending on whether it is spelled exactly as it sounds: PHONETIC. It may take several tries before finding the meaning and spelling that best match the meaning of the word in your context. And there is a larger and more common problem: the word you're looking for might be a form of the word and is not given its own entry in the dictionary. This means that you will often need to determine whether it is a root word, or an INFLECTED form. The root is the word in its most essential form, without any prefixes or suffixes (see below for more on these). The inflected form changes the root to indicate how many (number), who's talking (person), and when (tense). The inflected forms of a word are usually listed toward the beginning or end of the dictionary entry.

So now what do I do?
Ask yourself: does the word have a PREFIX in front of it, like un- or mis- (Examples: unhappy or mislead)? If it does, try looking up the root words, which in these cases come afterward: happy and lead. Then it's a matter of linking the meaning of the root word with the meaning of the prefix un-. The catch here is that you will need to know the standard meanings for the prefixes. Most good dictionaries will contain full dictionary entries for the most common prefixes and their meanings, and some dictionaries list them in a table or key.

Take a look at this entry for the word happy, looking specifically for the adjective happier:

Happy

Note that happier is listed as another adjectival form of happy, along with a third adjective, happiest, toward the beginning of the entry. Of course there is another catch: what do the SUFFIXES -er and -est mean? This is why you need to buy a good dictionary because it will contain full entries for all of the common suffixes and their meanings.

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Which One? / Looking up a Word / Reading an Entry / Parts of Speech