Headword section

The headword is the subject of the Dictionary entry or article. The headword section focuses exclusively on a headword's form--its spelling, pronunciation, and grammatical forms, its origin, evolution, and other information that applies to the entire entry or article, not necessarily to a particular sense or meaning within it.

Features of the headword section

1. Status symbol

Status symbols are visual guides that alert the Dictionary user to particular characteristics of a word, meaning, or usage. For example, a status symbol will tell whether a term is obsolete, or whether it is a foreign word that hasn't been fully anglicized either in form or pronunciation. In the Dictionary these latter words are referred to as non-naturalized (or alien). Status symbols appear before the sense number (or before a part of the meaning). The status symbols used in the headword section are a dagger, which indicates obsolete words, and parallels, which indicate alien or non-naturalized words. The New Edition only uses the dagger, the status of a non-naturalized word being indicated in the etymology or definition text.

2. Headword

The headword shows the most common modern spelling of the word. Sometimes two alternatives are given. If a word is judged obsolete the headword shows a convenient historical spelling under which to group information about the word.

3. Pronunciation

This feature shows the standard pronunciation of the headword (in British English unless otherwise stated). The pronunciation is represented by the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a phonetic system widely used in teaching, linguistic research, and in dictionaries. Obsolete words are not normally provided with a pronunciation.

4. Part of speech

This feature explains the headword's function in a sentence; that is, whether it is used as a verb, noun, adjective or other part of speech. Some entries have several parts of speech. In these cases the information about each of these aspects of the headword are collected together in one entry.

5. Homonym number

The homonym number is an index number, used for reference purposes, to distinguish two or more headwords with the same spelling and part of speech, but different derivations.

6. Label

A label is a term, usually displayed in italics, which gives brief information, usually in abbreviated form, on the context in which that term is used. For instance, a label will give a term's regional origin (e.g. U.S., Australia), the subject area from which it derives (e.g. Biology, Chemistry, Music), the status or level of language to which it belongs (e.g. slang, dialect), its grammatical function (e.g. plural, collective) and the type of meaning assigned to a word in a particular context (e.g. figurative, specific).

7. Variant forms

Variant forms are the alternative spellings in which a word has been found over the centuries. Centuries are given in abbreviated form in the Second Edition. For instance, 4-8 should be read as 14th to 18th centuries, and 1 means before 1100 AD. In the New Edition, centuries are denoted by the first two digits of their years, e.g. 17 denotes the century 1700-1799. Also in the New Edition, Old and Middle English spellings are denoted OE and ME respectively.

8. Etymology and etymological note

The etymology is the derivation of a word. The etymology section explains how a word became part of the English language. The section includes information on the process of derivation (whether a word came into English through borrowing or was formed from elements already existing in English, etc.) and, whenever appropriate, on the foreign words involved in this process. The etymology section may also give detailed information on the meanings, history, or aspects of grammar that are relevant to a word.