A Short History of the Dictionary
Instructions: Complete the paragraphs by choosing one word for each gap.
common
physical
originally
role
regularly
meaning
century
represent
classify
discovery
arranged
requested
How often do you use a dictionary? As a student you probably use one (1) _____________.
For everyone in education, from the primary school pupil to the university professor, a
dictionary is a (2) _____________ tool for understanding new words. But what do you know
about the history of the dictionary?
Dictionaries go back in history as far as the 13th (3) _____________. The first dictionaries
were bilingual ones. English speakers used them to find the (4) _____________ of words in
Latin, French and Italian. At that time, people used different methods to (5) _____________
words; they weren’t put in alphabetical order as modern dictionaries are, and it wasn’t
until 1604, that dictionaries with words (6) _____________ in alphabetical order were
written. Later, people started producing the mono-lingual (e.g. English-English)
dictionaries that we find today.
Level Three Assessment Committtee
ANSWERS
1. regularly
2. common
3. century
4. meaning
5. classified
6. arranged
Level Three Assessment Committtee