Dictionary

How to spell dictionary

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce dictionary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dictionary mean?

1. nounA reference book or digital resource listing words alphabetically with their meanings, spellings, and pronunciations.

Dictionary in a sentence

• She reached for the dictionary to check the spelling of the word.

• The office keeps a battered dictionary on the shelf above the printer.

Where does dictionary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin dictionarium, a collection of words and phrases, which was built on the Latin dictio meaning 'a saying' or 'a word'. That noun in turn traces back to the verb dicere, 'to say' or 'to speak', so a dictionary is literally a place where sayings are gathered. The term seems to have been coined in medieval Latin around the 1200s, and English adopted it by the early 1500s as printed word-lists became common. The same dicere root sits inside many familiar relatives such as 'dictate', 'predict', 'verdict', and 'contradict', all of which involve speaking or saying. The trap in the spelling is the unstressed middle: the '-tion-' sounds like 'shun' but is spelled with 'ti', and the ending is '-ary' rather than the '-ery' that the ear might suggest.

How the word is built

• dict- (from Latin dicere: to say, to speak)
• -ion (noun-forming)
• -ary (place or collection of)