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HEAD WORDS

a. HILT/HOLD

b. HOLDER/HOOKY

c. HOOLIGAN/
HOUSEBOAT

ORIGIN KEY
	a.	Gk =Greek
	b.	Port =Portuguese
	c.	Fr =French
	d.	Ofr =Old French
	e.	Lat =Latin
	f.	Mex Sp =Mexican
	g.	OE =Old English

Check answers:

Using a Dictionary - Practice Exercises
Contents

Part 1

Part 2

EXERCISES

PLURALS
USING HEAD WORDS
MEANINGS
WORD ORIGIN/ETYMOLOGY

PLURALS

Activity

HAVE A GO! Try yourself out on these. What do you think the plural (more than one) is of each of the words below?

WORD	TYPE YOUR ANSWER	DICTIONARY CHECK*
Hippopotamus		Check
Ally		Check
Mercy		Check
Volcano		Check

*remember to look for the abbreviation "pl." denoting "plural" in the dictionary entry.

USING HEAD WORDS

What's the Right Page?
Below is a list of words from three different pages of a dictionary. In the blue box on the left-hand side there are head words (guide words) from these pages.

On which pages (a, b or c) would these words be found? Use the buttons to the right of the words to select your choices.

Then click on the downarrow on the "View correct answers" box below to display the correct answers.

WORD	YOUR ANSWER	WORD	YOUR ANSWER
1.History	a b c	2.Homage	a b c
3.Homework	a b c	4.Horoscope	a b c
5.Hoax	a b c	6.Hint	a b c
7.Hives	a b c	8.Honey	a b c
9.Hogwash	a b c	VIEW CORRECT ANSWERS:

MEANINGS

"SPUNKY" EXERCISE

Read the entries below AND try yourself out on the questions.

A. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web 1913)	Spunky \Spunk"y\, a. [Compar. {Spunkier}; superl. {Spunkiest}.] Full of spunk; quick; spirited. [Colloq.]
B. From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)	spunky adj 1: showing courage; "the champion is faced with a feisty challenger" [syn: {feisty}, {plucky}] 2: willing to face danger [syn: {game}, {gamy}, {gamey}, {gritty}, {mettlesome}, {spirited}]

QUESTIONS

1. What part of speech is spunky?

Notice that two more adjective endings are shown: spunkier and spunkiest.

2. What form of spunky would you use in this sentence?

My sister is the ________ person I know.

Answer:

WORD ORIGIN/ETYMOLOGY ACTIVITY

This activity will give you practice reading word origins in dictionary entries.

Activity
Click on the words below to check the word origins in Websters Dictionary Online. Then check the correct box using the key on the left hand side.

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g
1.enchilada
2.emu
3.enclose
4.encore
5.empty
6.emporium
7.enclave

Activity

Want to have some more fun with etymologies?

Dictionary.com has links you can follow.

Using a Dictionary - Practice Exercises Contents

Using a Dictionary - Practice Exercises
Contents