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How to spell dictionary

hear itdic·tion·ar·y/'dɪkʃə,nɛri/nounPrefixes and work

What it means: A reference book with an alphabetical list of words.

In a sentence: I used the dictionary to find the meaning of a new word.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as dictonary or dictionery.

Same family: diction, predict, verdict, contradict. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Dictionary” comes from the Medieval Latin word “dictionarium,” meaning “a collection of words and phrases.” It is built on the Latin root “dicere,” which means “to say” or “to speak,” so a dictionary is literally a book of things that are said.

Patterns it uses: -tion, -sion or -cian?

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