By Beatrice S Mikulecky & Linda Jeffries
If you are able to infer the general meaning of a word from the context, you can make better use of the dictionary. In fact, many words have more than one definition and you need to choose the most appropriate one. For example, the word laugh (as a verb) has eleven different definitions in the Longman Advanced American Dictionary. Definitions for the word “get” cover three pages!
Below are guidelines for choosing a definition in the dictionary:
One, determine the part of speech of the unknown word. This is necessary because there may be several dictionary entries for one word as different parts of speech.
Two, look at the words that are used with it. If it is a part of a frequent combination of words, the definition may be listed separately. For example, you will find separately numbered definitions for “sign up” and “sign off”. The same is true of “on sight” and “sight unseen” (both listed in the dictionary under sight).
Three, analyze the context for clues to the general meaning of the word.
Four, think about the topic and the meaning of the sentence in which the word is found.
Five, look at the definitions listed in the dictionary and choose the most appropriate one – the one that best fits the way the word is used in the sentence.
Taken from:
Mickulecky, Beatrice S. & Jeffries, Linda. 2007. Advanced Reading Power. New York: Pearson Longman.
No comments:
Post a Comment