Learn more about dictionaries

2. Keywords

(Vocabulary that should receive priority)

The keywords of the Oxford 3000 have been carefully selected by a group of language experts and experienced teachers as the words which should receive priority in vocabulary study because of their importance and usefulness. To illustrate the keywords, different dictionaries use different symbols; some show them in red while some other dictionaries put a key symbol next to the words.

Also, words belonging to the Academic Words List are marked “AC” in your dictionary to tell you that they are useful words in academic English and are really worth learning.

Note: Be selective about words you learn. You can read about how many words every English learner needs to learn. 

3. Pronunciation

How do you pronounce the word “comfortable”? In a digital dictionary, you can click on the speaker buttons to hear the correct pronunciations. For those who use desk dictionaries, there is a row of phonetics guide at the bottom of every page to pronounce the words correctly.

4. Stress

In some cases, a change in the position of stress in a word can result in a change in meaning. For example:

CONtent (n.) = the things that are inside a box, room, book etc.
conTENT (adj.) = happy and satisfied

Please bear in mind that the key to natural-sounding English is paying attention to stress patterns. Sometimes even a very easy word like “DICtionary” is mispronounced as “dicTIONary“!

5. Part of speech

(Word family)

Words are divided into different types in grammar according to theirs use. For example, did you know that the word “dog” is also a verb?!

The main parts of speech are:
[v.]: verb
[n.]: noun
[adj.]: adjective
[adv.]: adverb
[conj.]: conjunction
[prep.]: preposition
[pro.]: pronoun
[det.]: determiner
[int.]: interjection

6. Register

(level of formality)

This refers to the level of formality of a word. It is important to be consistent both in writing and speaking and preserve a formal, semi-formal or informal tone throughout your speech or writing. For example:

Informal: We need lots of stuff for making these things.
Formal: A significant amount of raw material is required for manufacturing such products.

7. [ T ] or [ I ]

(Transitive or Intransitive Verbs)

Verbs can be Transitive, Intransitive, or both. Simply put, the verbs that always need an object are [T]. For example, “kill” is a transitive verb as in “John had to kill the horse.”, while verbs that do not need any objects are marked [I]: “My grandfather died peacefully in bed.” But some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive:

Break (T): They broke his pencil. (with an object)
Break (I): His chair broke in the middle of the interview. (no object)

Note: It is important to check whether a verb is transitive or intransitive because you cannot use intransitive verbs in passive voice. For instance, the verb “happen” is intransitive and it is wrong to say, “It was happened twice this year.“; instead, you must say, “It happened twice this year.“

8. [ C ] or [ U ]

(Countable or Uncountable Nouns)

One the most important things to check about a noun when you use your dictionary is if is Countable or Uncountable. You can read more about this here.

9. Examples

Take your time and read all the examples for the word you are looking up. These are valuable sentences that help you learn the correct use of a word. For instance, we all know both “tiring” and “tired” are adjectives, but the word tired is used for people as in “I’m so tired I could sleep for a week.” whereas tiring is used for things, people and matters that make you tired, e.g. “We’ve all had a long tiring day.”