Making the Most of Your Library
Part 2 -- Dictionaries
This article originally appeared in Science Fiction & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter #124, January 1992
Almost everybody is familiar with "the dictionary," by which they are referring primarily with the basic dictionary of the English language. However this is not the only sort of dictionary that is available. In this article I shall discuss the various sorts of dictionaries that are available.
Almost everyone is familiar with the basic dictionary of the English language, and every writer should possess a pocket or collegiate dictionary as a desk reference. In addition, there are other kinds of English-language dictionaries that an individual would probably not possess but may wish to refer to at the library. The first of these is the unabridged dictionary, which contains the meanings of rare or archaic words in addition to the common words that can be found in the smaller dictionaries. Related to the unabridged dictionary is the monumental Oxford English Dictionary, which lists every word that has been used in the language with its etymology, or word history.
Anyone who has ever taken a foriegn language will be familiar with the bilingual dictionary, which gives equivalences between the words of two different languages. These dictionaries are most commonly used for finding the meaning of a foriegn expression. For the writer they will also be useful for finding a word or phrase in a foriegn language.
Finally there are the subject dictionaries, which give the meanings of specialized terminology in particular disciplines, or the specialized meanings in which common terms are used by the practicioners of a particular discipline. For instance the word "work" has a special meaning to a physicist that it does not have in everyday parlance. A dictionary of phisics will give a clear definition of this meaning and how it is used in the field. Many of these subject dictionaries have very long and involved entries on certain terms that are of primary significance for the discipline but are difficult to define for the layperson. In this way subject dictionaries blur with subject encyclopedias, which will be discussed in my next article.
Last updated November 4, 2010