#18 Expanding Your Vocabulary: How to Use a Dictionary

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Expanding your vocabulary is no easy task. But you can make headway if you learn how to use a dictionary properly.

Let's say you have just read or heard a word unfamiliar to you. How do you use a dictionary to help you remember the new word?

Choose a Good Dictionary

In expanding your vocabulary, you first need a good dictionary. For Australian English, try the Macquarie Dictionary. For British English, try the Oxford English Dictionary. For US English, try Websters. Keep the dictionary close by, consult it carefully and often.

How NOT to Use the Dictionary

Most of us use dictionaries unproductively. Assume you look up your dictionary for the meaning of a word. Of the various definitions the dictionary gives, you disregard all of them except the definition that makes sense of the word in the context in which you heard it or saw it, or which fits your preconception of the word's meaning. As the authors of The Century Vocabulary Builder say, "At best you have tided over a transitory need, or have verified a surmise." You have not really learned the word; you have not "so fixed it in memory that henceforth, night or day, you can take it up like a familiar tool."(Creever and Bachelor, 70). "Fixing a word in memory" involves effort and application. You must use a dictionary intelligently.

The Secret to Using a Dictionary

A big secret to using a dictionary to expand your vocabulary is finding the original meaning of the word. If the word comes from Old English or from a foreign language, look at the word's origin. You will find this information (called etymology) inside brackets or parentheses following the word or at the end of the list of definitions. For example, you may find the Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, or other word that your word came from.

Having found your word's original meaning, get this original meaning into your head; the original meaning is one of the really significant things about the word and really helps in expanding your vocabulary.

Next, find the modern meaning of the word. Look through the modern definitions. Your word might have too many definitions, or the differences between the meanings might be too subtle, for you to keep all the meanings clearly in mind. But do not worry about this. Consider those different meanings, but focus mainly on the drift or the central meaning of the word.

You now know the original meaning of the word and its central meaning today. The two meanings might be the same or they might be completely different. But you should be able to see some sort of connection between the two meanings. When you have done this, you have mastered the word. From the two meanings you can work out the other meanings, wherever and whenever you find them, since the other meanings are just outgrowths and applications of the original meaning and the modern meaning. By using a dictionary in this way, you will expand your vocabulary.

Example

Look up the word "tension". For example, look up the Macquarie Dictionary.

Step 1. Find the original meaning of "tension" (in the Macquarie Dictionary, you will find this original meaning in brackets at the end of the definitions). You will see that tension comes from the Latin tensio, which means "act of stretching". Thus we know the form of the original word (tensio) closely resembles the form of the modern word (tension), and that the original meaning involves the idea of stretching.

Step 2. Next, work out the central meaning of "tension" today. To do this, go through the definitions listed. They are:

  • noun 1. the act of stretching or straining.
  • 2. the state of being stretched or strained.
  • 3. mental or emotional strain; intense suppressed anxiety, suspense, or excitement.
  • 4. a strained relationship between individuals, groups, countries, etc.
  • 5. Mechanics
  • a. a state in which a body is stretched or increased in size in one direction with a decrease in size in a certain ratio in a perpendicular direction.
  • b. a force tending to elongate a body.
  • 6. Electricity
  • a. the condition of a dielectric body when its opposite surfaces are oppositely charged.
  • b. electromotive force; potential.
  • 7. Machinery a device for stretching or pulling something.
  • 8. a device to hold the proper tension on the material being woven in a loom.
  • —verb (t) 9. to adjust to the desired degree of tension: to tension a hacksaw blade.

Of these definitions, some of the meanings (for example, 6a and 6b) are too specialized to inform us, by themselves, of the word's meaning. But even these definitions reflect the core idea of stretching, or of the strain that stretching produces.

Step 3. Now compare the original meaning with the central meaning today, to draw your conclusions. You will see that the two meanings correspond. Yet by looking further into the meanings you will also notice an important difference between the meanings. The original meaning is literal; some of the modern meanings are more figurative. Today, when we say we feel "tension", we might be thinking of our nervous system rather than a piece of stretched material.

The result

We now know that tension means stretching, and that the stretching may be literal or figurative. By knowing these two facts, we need not (unless we are experts in mechanics, electricity, or the loom) go to the trouble of memorizing the special meanings of tension: "should the occasion bid, we can — from our position at the heart of the word — easily grasp their rough purport. And from other persons than specialists no more would be required."(Creever and Bachelor, 74).

Modern vocabulary-expanding tools

Similar ideas underlie modern vocabulary-expanding tools. For example, Ultimate Vocabulary hooks into online etymology databases, making it easy for you to see the original meaning and origin of a word. Ultimate Vocabulary also has a comprehensive dictionary that uses Princeton University's "WordNet" database for the software's backend.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a section from Garland Creever and Joseph M Bachelor, The Century Vocabulary Builder (1922) 69-74. You can download the complete book as a PDF here: The Century Vocabulary Builder (Build your vocabulary 1.4 mb)

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