# dictionary

/ˈdɪkʃəˌnɛɹi/ (US) · /dˈɪkʃənəɹi/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/dictionary
Updated: 2026-07-22

## Senses

### 1. book of word meanings

noun · CEFR A1

a book or website that lists words in alphabetical order and explains what they mean.

For teachers: a reference work containing an alphabetical list of words with their definitions, pronunciations, and often etymological data.

- If you do not know what a word means, you should look it up in the dictionary.
- The student consulted a bilingual dictionary to ensure the nuances of the technical term were preserved in his translation.

### 2. alphabetical reference work

noun · CEFR B2

a book that gives information about a specific subject, with topics listed from A to Z.

For teachers: a specialized reference work or encyclopedia arranged alphabetically by subject matter.

- She bought a dictionary of gardening to help identify the plants in her new yard.
- The library recently acquired a comprehensive dictionary of architecture, covering styles from the classical era to the present day.

### 3. computing data structure

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

a way of storing information in a computer where each piece of data has a unique name or key.

For teachers: an associative array or collection of key-value pairs, where each unique key maps to a specific value.

- The programmer used a dictionary to store the user's settings and their values.
- In Python, a dictionary is an efficient way to retrieve data when the unique identifier is known but the index is not.

### 4. knowledgeable person

noun · CEFR B2 · Humorous

a person who seems to know the meaning of every word or many facts.

For teachers: a person regarded as a vast repository of information or vocabulary.

- My grandfather is a walking dictionary; he can tell you the history of almost any word.
- The professor was a living dictionary of medieval history, capable of citing obscure dates and names without ever glancing at his notes.

### 5. to look up or record

verb · CEFR C2 · Formal

to look for a word in a dictionary or to add a new word to one.

For teachers: to search for a term in a reference work or to include a lexical item within a formal lexicon.

- The editors decided to dictionary the new slang term after it became popular nationwide.
- The linguist spent years attempting to dictionary the dying dialect before its last native speakers passed away.

## Examples

- I use a dictionary to look up new words.
- The student kept a small dictionary on her desk to help with her translation homework.
- While traditional dictionaries focus on lexical definitions, modern digital versions often integrate corpus data to provide users with real-world examples of how words function in different social contexts.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.