Dictionary

/ˈdɪkʃəˌnɛri/

Meaning & Definition

noun
A book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language in alphabetical order and provides their meanings, pronunciations, and sometimes other information such as etymologies or usage.
I looked up the word 'aberration' in the dictionary to understand its meaning.
A reference work that contains an alphabetical list of words in a language with their meanings, translations, or information about them.
Students often use a bilingual dictionary to help them translate between English and Spanish.
A specialized reference source that provides information about the terminology of a specific field.
The medical dictionary helped her understand complex medical terms during her studies.
A resource for programming that holds collectively defined terms for various programming languages.
To avoid confusion in our project, we created a dictionary of technical terms.

Etymology

The term 'dictionary' comes from the Latin word 'dictionarium', meaning 'a collection of words'.

Common Phrases and Expressions

flip through the dictionary
To quickly look through a dictionary for information.
in the dictionary
Used to indicate that something has a specific definition or meaning.
dictionary definition
The literal meaning of a term as found in a dictionary.

Related Words

lexicon
A collection of words and their meanings in a particular language.
thesaurus
A book that lists synonyms and antonyms of words.

Slang Meanings

A comprehensive list of jargon or terms used in a specific field.
The medical dictionary is full of terminology that can be confusing.
A collection of cool or trendy words.
That new slang dictionary has all the latest terms.