How to check a word in a dictionary (Lesson-15)

Hello, friends!
My name is Snehal. Today we are going to talk about an extremely valuable topic. It is observed many times that most of the students struggle with this. We are going to discuss “how to check a word in a dictionary”. This comes under absolutely basic stuff but many of us don’t pay attention to such basic things. So without wasting much time, let’s dive into it.

Most commonly what students do is that they just check the meaning of a word. For instance, let’s take a word “Break” which is spelled B-R-E-A-K. They just check the meaning of the word and that’s it. They don’t go through a lot more information that they must undergo. What are this information? What do they really miss? What do they actually skip? In this podcast, I am going to try to cover a lot of information that they ought to go through. By following the example of the word “break”, we will see how to use a dictionary in a proper manner. So, relax and have some patience.

We have taken an example word “break”. Online dictionaries or apps can be used. One can also use a physical dictionary to follow the method of searching a word. When we see this word or any other word in a dictionary, the below mentioned points should be followed.

1. A figure of speech is mentioned just beside a word like whether it’s a noun(n.) or pronoun(pron.) or verb(v.) or adjective(adj.) or adverb(adv.) or interjection(int.) or conjunction(conj.) or preposition(prep.). In this case, ‘break’ is a verb.
2. A sound button can be seen which pronounces the word. That means it will give you a better idea about how to utter the word. (This facility is available on apps and on the internet.)
3. If a word is a verb then a dictionary gives its past tense and past participle form as well. In our example, “Broke” is a past tense and “Broken” is a past participle.
4. You should also see some sample sentences that give you an idea about the usage a particular word. In our example of a word “break”, some sample sentences could be like this: 1. He breaks a new record in cricket every year. 2. She broke her brand-spanking new guitar in anger. 3. COVID-19 has broken so many records of death so far. 4. He is going to break his old bicycle tonight. These sentences are the examples of the word when it is used in context of a verb.
5. The same word has very different meanings. In our example word, “break”, has a lot of meanings like: to smash, to violate, to escape and so on.
6. You would be able to see some phrasal verbs, in some cases related idioms, in a dictionary. In our case, some phrasal verbs are: break down, break up, break into and so on.
7. This word – break – can also be functioned as a noun. The example is: Let’s carry on our work after a short break.
8. Finally, if you are interested, you can go through the history of a word. It refers to its root and origin. In this way, you can get much better idea about a word and boost your knowledge.

I know that this podcast is a bit lengthy. I tried to cover everything that one should know when one sees a dictionary. I hope you will like this podcast and it has enhanced your perception regarding a dictionary. Thanks for bearing me with patience. The written description of this podcast is available on my blog. So, you can go there and check it out. We will meet tomorrow, till then bye and take care!

The podcast link is :
https://anchor.fm/snehalhedau/episodes/How-to-check-a-word-in-a-dictionary-Lesson-15-ecmctp