Derivatives of the main word may be treated as main words in their own right, or be placed in a section at the end of the entry for the word on which they are formed, introduced by ‘Hence’, ‘Also’, or ‘So’:
In some cases, the main word and derivative(s) are treated together:
Large Roman capital letters are used principally for division of an entry into different parts of speech:
Large Roman capital numerals are used to indicate the ‘branches’ or main historical divisions of the sense development: see General explanations, here. The distinct senses of a word are numbered 1, 2, 3, etc.; each of these senses may be further subdivided a, b, c, etc., and a further subdivision (a), (b), (c), or (i), (ii), (iii), etc. is also possible: for further explanation, see here
The etymology and form history are introduced by bold square brackets. In the main entry, these are placed after the variant forms:
Etymologies, or etymological information, may also occur in other places within an entry, still enclosed in square brackets:
Labels normally appear in italic type, and are used to indicate the status or usage of a word or sense. Usage labels include indications of register (colloq., slang), geographical area (U.S., Austral.), or subject specialization (Law, Linguistics). For further explanation, see here.
The part of speech, or grammatical category of a word, is normally given in italic type after the headword or subordinate word(s):
anneal (@"ni;l), v. Forms: 1 onælan (anælan)
air-dammed a., furnished with an air dam;
Where the subordinate words are given in bold italic type, the part of speech may follow in Roman:
air-dried a., dried by the action of the air; so
air-dry v. trans.; air-driven a., actuated by means of compressed air;
Where no part of speech is given, the entry is for a noun (substantive).
The pronunciation, transcribed according to the International Phonetic Alphabet, is enclosed in round brackets:
The pronunciation normally appears immediately after the headword or subordinate word, but may be given elsewhere, for example when different senses have distinct pronunciations:
For a detailed description of the IPA transcription used, see here; a key to the symbols is given here. In some cases, it is unnecessary to give a full phonetic transcription; instead, the word is printed with a stress mark (") before the stressed syllable:
Secondary stress is indicated by an inferior stress mark (%):
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