Reference Section

Abstract

The first part of this section follows from ‘Why use a dictionary?’ on P. 54 Chapter 3. The first six headings below correspond to the headings there. You can use a dictionary to:

• 1. Check the meanings of words

  ‘Spurious’, ‘judicial’, ‘precedent’ are words you might have checked. You may know the meaning of the last one but want to know what it means in this legal context.

• 2. Check the meaning of idiomatic expressions

  Look up ‘lip-service’.

• 3. Check how to pronounce a word

  How do you pronounce ‘spurious’? Compare the way this word is marked with ‘spurn’, ‘sputnick’ and ‘sputter’ further down the page.

• 4. Find out what a familiar word means when it’s used in an unfamiliar way

  Look up ‘distinguished’. What does it mean here?

• 5. Find out what part of speech a word is

  This is not just for grammar buffs but can help you to establish meaning and pronunciation:

  ‘distinguished’ as in a ‘a distinguished visitor’ is an adjective describing the noun ‘visitor’.