Page 17 - English Vocabulary In Use upper intermediet and advance

5 Using your dictionary

Good dictionaries can tell you a lot more about a word than just its meaning,
including (among other things):
Synonyms and their differences, e.g. mislay and lose
Antonyms (opposites), e.g. friend z enemytfoe
Collocations (how words go together), e.g. auburn combines only with hair (or connected
words, e.g. curls)
Pronunciation: this will mean learning some symbols which are different from the letters
of the English alphabet.
0 th in thick 6 th in then tJ ch in church
J sh in she dg j in jam 3 s in pleasure
IJ ng in ring a: a in bad D o in top
3: o in form u u in put a a in about
A u in up 3: i in bird
Most other symbols look just like ordinary letters of the English alphabet and their
pronunciation is not so hard to guess. But check the table given in the index.
Word stress: often shown by a mark before the syllable to be stressed or by underlining,
e.g. adlventJa/, /=tan/. Make sure you know how your dictionary marks stress.
Usage: how a word is used and any special grammatical pattern that goes with it,
e.g. suggest + clause (not an infinitive) - I suggest you ring her right away.
Whether a word is used for people and/or things. For example, look at this entry for
malignant:
ma..fig-nant /malhgnant/ adj 1 (of people or their
achons) feeling or showing great desire to harm
others; malevolent: a malignant slander, attack,
thrmt. 2 (a) (of a tumour) growing uncontrol-
lably, and likely to prove fatal: The growth is not
malignant. (b) (of diseases) harmful to life.
I> ma.lig.nancy 1-nansri n 1 [U] state of being
malignant. 2 [C] mahgnant tumour.
rna.lig.nantly adv.
Word-class (usually abbreviations n: noun, adj: adjective, etc.), whether a noun is
countable or uncountable, and whether a verb is normally transitive (needs an object) or
intransitive (doesn't need an object).

Don't forget that most words have more than one meaning. In this example, only the second
meaning corresponds to the way hairy is used in this sentence:
It was a really hairy journey on the mountain road.

hairy /he&/, hairier, hairiest. 1 Someone or ADJQU*~~~
somelhmg that 1s hairy 1s covered wlth ha~r. EG ... a
plump child wffh hafry legs ... ... a brg, hairy man..
The funcllon of a mammal's harry coal IS to mulare
the body.
2 If vou describe a situation as halry, you meal, that ADJQUNIJ
11 IS excltlng, worryrng, and ralher frrghtening, a = new'
very rnformal use. EG It go1 a lillle haiw when we "cklng'rary
drove hrm to Ihe slalron with less lhan lwo minules
to spare.

10 English Vocabulary in Use