Beyond definition 101

9 Beyond definition

In the previous chapter we discussed the treatment of what is often considered

the main function of dictionaries: the description of word meaning. In this
chapter, we investigate some of the other information about words that diction-
aries may contain, some of the ‘facts about words’ that we outlined in Chapter
2. While we shall look at topics such as spelling, pronunciation, inflections,
word classes, and usage, we shall leave etymology until the next chapter.

9.1 Spelling
As we have noted before, dictionaries cannot help but give information about
spelling, since as alphabetically organised word books they are founded on the
written form of words. Consulting the dictionary to check the spelling of words
we also found to be one of the major occasions of their use (Chapter 7). While
headwords, or nested derivatives, supply information about the usual spellings
of words, there is additional information, about variations in spelling, that dic-
tionaries also give. The variation can be of various kinds.
Some words simply have alternative spellings, where the choice of one rather
than the other is purely a matter of personal preference. Both spellings are
equally acceptable. Here are some examples (from COD9):

absorption – absorbtion, baptistery – baptistry, caddie – caddy, diffuser –

diffusor, extrovert – extravert, filigree – filagree, gizmo – gismo, horsy –
horsey, judgement – judgment, movable – moveable, neurone – neuron,
pendent – pendant, regime – régime, smidgen – smidgeon – smidgin, tran-
quillity – tranquility, yogurt – yoghurt.

A surprisingly large number of words have alternative spellings, and from this
list we can observe some possible patterns: final -ie or -y, suffix -er or -or, z or s,
possible loss of e after dg or v plus suffix, loss of accent from vowels of words
borrowed from French, and so on.
Many British dictionaries take account of the differences between British and
American spelling. CED4, for example, enters the American spelling of words
like center and pediatrics at the appropriate place in the headword list, and then
102 Beyond definition
gives a cross-reference to the British spelling. For words like savior and theater,
which would occur close to the British spelling, the American alternative is
simply given under the British spelling. There are two further spelling variations
that are often seen as differences between British and American English: the
ae – e alternation in aesthetics – esthetics, and the s – z alternation in -ise/-ize (e.g.
marginalise/-ize). The -ise/-ize alternation is no longer regarded as a British/
American difference; British dictionaries merely note these as alternative spell-
ings. The ae – e alternation is not yet fully accepted in British spelling. In most
dictionaries, with the exception of Chambers, encyclopedia is entered as the main
spelling, with encyclopaedia as the alternative; similarly with medieval and media-
eval. However, archaeology is the main spelling (or sole spelling – Chambers,
LDEL); archeology is given as an alternative in CED4, and is marked as American
in NODE and other Oxford dictionaries. And in the case of aesthetics, paediatrics,
etc. the alternative is usually marked as American.
One other area where dictionaries pay attention to spelling is where altera-
tions occur as a consequence of adding an inflectional suffix, such as cry – cried,
big – bigger. We will consider this in 9.3, where we discuss dictionary informa-
tion about inflections.

9.2 Pronunciation
How a word is pronounced is one of its idiosyncractic facts; it is the phonologi-
cal counterpart of spelling (orthography), its shape in the medium of sound as
against its shape in the medium of writing. We would expect, therefore, that
dictionaries would indicate at least the sounds that constitute the pronunciation
of the word, and for words of more than one syllable the stress pattern. There
are two issues in relation to pronunciation in dictionaries: first, how pronuncia-
tion is represented in the written medium that the dictionary uses, i.e. the
transcription system; and second, the model that is used for pronunciation, and
how much variation is indicated.
In most modern British dictionaries, the transcription system used to repre-
sent pronunciation is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), developed
in the late nineteenth century as a system, based on the Roman alphabet, that
could be used for transcribing the speech of any language, and as an aid in
learning the pronunciation of a foreign language. The alternative transcription
to the IPA is a ‘respelling’ system. When James Murray was devising a transcrip-
tion system for the OED in the mid-nineteenth century, the IPA had not yet
been invented, and he developed a respelling system. However, when the sec-
ond edition of the OED was put together, the only wholesale revision was to
replace Murray’s respellings with IPA transcriptions. Other Oxford dictionaries
followed suit: COD7 (1982) had respelling, COD8 (1990) changed to the IPA.
LDEL uses respelling; so does ECED and Chambers, but Chambers 21st Century
Dictionary uses IPA, as do the Collins dictionaries. American dictionaries, how-
ever, usually use a respelling system.
Both transcription systems have the aim of a one-to-one correspondence
between sound and symbol, and unique representation of each sound. In the
 Beyond definition 103
Table 9.1

Chambers LDEL2 CED4 COD9

binary bcsnfr-i sbienfri sbainfri sbkinfri

creation krb-as-shfn krisaysh(f)n kri:seinfn kri:sein(f)n
genuflect jense-flekt sjenyoo,flekt shvnjg,flvkt shvnjgflvkt
orphan örsffn sawf(f)n sl:ffn sl:f(f)n
Thursday thûrzsdi sthuhzdi smf:zdi smf:zdi

case of the IPA, because it uses symbols additional to those in the Roman
alphabet, it mostly uses a single symbol to represent each sound. A respelling
system, restricting itself to the symbols of the Roman alphabet, perhaps with the
addition of the ‘schwa’ symbol/f/, needs to use digraphs and even trigraphs in
order to achieve a unique one-to-one correspondence. Table 9.1 shows some
examples of transcription from a variety of dictionaries.
The argument used in favour of respelling is that it uses mostly familiar sym-
bols (Paikeday 1993), whereas the IPA employs a considerable number of sym-
bols that are not contained in the Roman alphabet. On the other hand, a respelling
system either has to use diacritics, as in the Chambers version, or a large number
of digraphs, as in the LDEL system (e.g. oo, aw, uh). Arguably, any transcrip-
tion system will constitute a learning task for the user who needs to consult it,
or at least the ability to interpret the table where the transcription is described
and illustrated. Some dictionaries provide reminders of the symbols at the
bottom of each page, e.g. COD9, with vowels on one double-page and con-
sonants on the next. Some CD-ROM versions of dictionaries provide a
recorded pronunciation of each transcription contained in the dictionary
(e.g. COD9).
Pronunciation is not information that native speakers regularly consult a
dictionary for. If they do, it is likely to be in order to check the pronunciation
of a word that they have met only in writing. Perhaps in recognition of this,
NODE and subsequently COD10 do not give a transcription of the pronuncia-
tion of ‘ordinary, everyday words’, rather:

In the New Oxford Dictionary of English, the principle followed is that pro-
nunciations are given where they are likely to cause problems for the native
speaker of English, in particular for foreign words, foreign names, scientific
and other specialist terms, rare words, words with unusual stress patterns,
and words where there are alternative pronunciations or where there is a
dispute about the standard pronunciation.
(Introduction, p. xvii)

What counts as an ordinary word must be a matter of judgement. By way of

comparison, here are lists of words from one page of COD10 distinguishing
those that have been provided with a transcription and those that have not:
104 Beyond definition
With transcription: traipse, trait, trajectory, Trakehner, Traminer, trammel,
tramontana, tramontane, trampoline, trance, tranche, trans-
Without transcription: training college, training shoe, train mile, train oil,
train shed, trainspotter, traitor, tra la, tram, tramlines, tramp, trample, tram
road, tram silk, tramway, trank, tranny, tranquil, tranquillize, transaction,
transactional analysis.

The exclusion of pronunciation information for many words in NODE and

COD10 represents a move, albeit small, away from subservience to the ‘record-
ing’ function of general-purpose dictionaries towards consideration of what the
user might or might not need.
The second issue concerns the model of pronunciation that is offered, and
the degree of variation that is recorded. COD9 says that its IPA transcriptions
are ‘based on the pronunciation associated especially with southern England
(sometimes called “Received Pronunciation”)’. In CED4, the ‘pronunciations
of words . . . represent those that are common in educated speech’. In LDEL2,

the pronunciation represented . . . is what may be called a ‘standard’ or

‘neutral’ British-English accent: the type of speech characteristic of those
people often described as having ‘no accent’, or, more accurately, having an
accent that betrays little or nothing of the region to which the speaker
belongs.

NODE represents ‘the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of

England (sometimes called Received Pronunciation or RP)’. Some of these
dictionaries acknowledge the existence of other accents, both in other English-
speaking countries and regionally within Britain, but argue that it is impossible
to do them all justice. Chambers, which describes some of the ways in which
pronunciation differs in other national varieties of English, claims that its respelling
system of transcription ‘allows for more than one interpretation so that each
user of the dictionary may choose a pronunciation in keeping with his speech’.
However it is described, it is the ‘educated’ accent of southern England, with
its /bkt/ rather than /bgt/ pronunciation of but, and /grp:s/ rather than /græs/
for grass, that is the model represented in British dictionaries. At one time, it was
argued that this accent was the one most widely understood, the one used
predominantly in public discourse, the one taught to foreign learners of English,
and so on. This is presumably the sense in which it might be considered a
‘standard accent’ (NODE), though NODE acknowledges that it is not a static
accent:

The transcriptions reflect pronunciation as it actually is in modern English,

unlike some longer-established systems, which reflect the standard pronun-
ciation of broadcasters and public schools in the 1930s.
(p. xvii)
 Beyond definition 105
The status of this accent as the prestige accent for British English has been
constantly challenged by phoneticians of English, and there is a much greater
diversity of accents heard now in public life. It is perhaps becoming an anach-
ronism to continue to record this accent in modern dictionaries, but the debate
on which pronunciation should be recorded has hardly begun.
Dictionaries do record some variation in pronunciation. Learners’ dictionar-
ies, which have a worldwide market, now routinely include American pronun-
ciation as well as British (Chapter 11). Native speaker dictionaries, on the other
hand, record variation within the chosen accent, for example the /i:k../ and /
vk../ beginnings to economics. Here are some further examples, drawn from
COD9:

• coastguard /skfgs(t)gp:d/
• distribute /disstribju:t/ - /sdistribju:t/
• February /sfvbrgfri/ - /sfvbjgfri/
• oceanic /fgnisanik/ - /fgsisanik/
• sedentary /ssvd(f)nt(f)ri/
• vin rosé /van rfgszei/ - /vṽroze/

They show a number of types of variation in pronunciation, even in the chosen

accent: omission of sounds in more rapid or ‘less careful’ enunciation (the sounds
in brackets in coastguard and sedentary); variation in stress placement, as in distrib-
ute; one or more alternative sounds, as in February and oceanic; and for loanwords,
the anglicised and the original, ‘foreign’, pronunciation, as for vin rosé.

9.3 Inflection
For most words that can be inflected in English – nouns, verbs, adjectives (see
Chapter 1) – the inflection follows from the general rules of morphology, is not
idiosyncratic to the individual lexeme, and is therefore not appropriate to the
lexical information contained in dictionaries. However, there are some excep-
tions to this generalisation, which dictionaries do record. A small number of
adjectives, some nouns, and a larger number of verbs inflect ‘irregularly’, not
according to the general pattern, and these are given for each lexeme con-
cerned, e.g.

• adjective bad – worse – worst

• noun foot – feet, mouse – mice, ox – oxen, sheep – sheep
• verb bring – brought – brought, feel – felt – felt, give – gave – given, hit –
hit – hit, see – saw – seen, wear – wore – worn, etc.

These basic irregularities do not exhaust the possible idiosyncracies, and dic-
tionaries tend to give any inflection that is likely to cause a difficulty for writers,
including predictable spelling variations.
106 Beyond definition
For the plural inflection of nouns, the following may well be noted:

• loanwords that retain their original, ‘foreign’ plural, e.g. cactus – cacti, crite-
rion – criteria, kibbutz – kibbutzim, phylum – phyla, vertex – vertices. More and
more of these plurals are becoming regularised, including cactuses and
vertexes.
• nouns that end in -o or -i, where there is often confusion about whether the
inflection is -s or -es, e.g. curio-s, domino-es, etui-s, halo-es or -s, piccallili-es or
-s.
• nouns ending in -y, which may change the y to i and add -es, or may simply
add -s, e.g. abbey-s, academy – academies, monkey -s, mystery – mysteries,
odyssey-s, symmetry – symmetries.
• nouns that change either the spelling or pronunciation of their final sound
(voicing of /m/, /f/ or /s/) when the plural suffix is added, e.g. bath-s, hoof
– hooves, house-s, mouth-s, shelf – shelves, truth-s, wolf – wolves.

For the inflections of verbs, the following may well be noted:

• where the final consonant of the root is doubled in spelling with the addi-
tion of a suffix: flip – flipping – flipped, lag – lagging – lagged, prod – prodding –
prodded, refer – referring – referred, shovel – shovelling – shovelled, sin – sinning –
sinned.
• where the final consonant might be expected to double, but does not, e.g.
benefit – benefiting – benefited, galop – galoping – galoped, gossip – gossiping –
gossiped, market – marketing – marketed, pilgrim – pilgriming – pilgrimed.
• where the final consonant is -c and a k is added before the inflectional suffix,
e.g. bivouac – bivouacking – bivouacked, magic – magicking – magicked, picnic –
picnicking – picnicked.
• where the final consonant is -y, which may change to i before an inflec-
tional suffix, e.g. cry – cries – cried (but crying), shy – shies – shied, supply –
supplies – supplied, weary – wearies – wearied.

For adjective inflections, the following usually apply:

• the consonant doubling rule, as for verbs, e.g. big – bigger – biggest, hip –
hipper – hippest, sad – sadder – saddest.
• the y to i rule, as for verbs, e.g. dry – drier – driest, fluffy – fluffier – fluffiest,
lively – livelier – liveliest, rosy – rosier – rosiest, wacky – wackier – wackiest
(but not sly -er, -est).

Additionally, two-syllable adjectives that form their comparative and super-

lative by means of inflectional suffixes, rather than the periphrastic more/most
construction, may be marked as such in the dictionary (e.g. NODE), such as
common -er/-est, narrow -er/-est, thirsty -er/-est. However, while NODE notes the
 Beyond definition 107
-er/-est suffixes for narrow – and sallow – it does not indicate them for mellow or
shallow.
One other point is worth mentioning here, though strictly speaking it be-
longs to derivational morphology rather than to inflectional. English has a number
of nouns that survive from Old English which have a related adjective that has
been borrowed into English usually from Latin, e.g. church – ecclesiastical. Some
dictionaries usefully indicate these connections, e.g. CED4. Further examples
are: lung – pneumonic, pulmonary, pulmonic; mind – mental, noetic, phrenic; wall –
mural.

9.4 Word class

It is one of the traditions of lexicography to identify the word class(es) or part(s)
of speech that each lexeme in a dictionary belongs to. The traditional terms,
usually abbreviated, are: noun (n), verb (v, vb), adjective (adj), adverb (adv),
pronoun (pron), preposition (prep), conjunction (conj), and interjection (interj).
Under the influence of modern descriptive linguistics the adjective class in some
dictionaries (e.g. CED, NODE) is divided into adjectives proper and ‘deter-
miners’ (see Chapter 1). CED in addition recognises a class of ‘sentence connec-
tors’ (e.g. however, therefore) and a class of ‘sentence substitutes’ (e.g. no, maybe),
both of which are traditionally assigned to the adverb class. In COD10, the
interjection class is renamed ‘exclamation’ (exclam) and it includes yes and no.
So far, most dictionaries follow the tradition. Practice begins to vary in the
information provided over and above the basic word class label. COD10 pro-
vides none. Its predecessor, the COD9, followed another tradition in respect of
verbs and marked verbs or senses of verbs as ‘transitive’ (tr) or ‘intransitive’
(intr), or indeed ‘reflexive’ (refl). For example, kick is marked ‘tr’ for the ‘strike
or propel forcibly with the foot or hoof etc.’ sense, ‘intr’ for the ‘strike out with
the foot’ sense, and ‘refl’ for the ‘kick oneself’ sense. COD10 perhaps excludes
these terms in recognition of the fact that they are not familiar to most modern
dictionary users; its larger parent, NODE, also eschews them, using ‘with obj’,
i.e. ‘object’, and ‘no obj’ instead.
Indeed, NODE goes further than most general-purpose native speaker dic-
tionaries in the ways in which it subclassifies words. For nouns, it indicates
when a noun is used as a ‘mass noun’, e.g. legislation, which cannot be made
plural or be preceded by the indefinite article (a/an). It also uses the term ‘count
noun’ for a sense of a mass noun that can be made plural and countable, e.g.
observance in the sense of ‘religious or ceremonial observances’. Otherwise nouns
are assumed to be countable. NODE recognises a subclass of ‘sentence adverb’,
with 159 adverbs or senses of adverbs so marked, including coincidentally, fortun-
ately, paradoxically, regrettably, thankfully. It also marks a subclass of ‘submodifier’
adverbs, which are used to modify adjectives and other adverbs, some 277 of
them, including altogether, decidedly, hideously, predictably, simply, utterly.
The word class label, and any subclassification, represents grammatical infor-
mation about words, where they can operate in the syntax of sentences, what
108 Beyond definition
their combinatorial possibilities are. Some dictionaries provide grammatical
information over and above word class labelling, though it is difficult to draw a
clear distinction between word (sub-)class information proper and other syntac-
tic labelling. Indeed, NODE in its discussion of these matters in the ‘Guide to
the Use of the Dictionary’ makes no such distinction.

9.5 Other grammatical information

The distinction between ‘mass’ and ‘count’ noun, for example, is not simply a
word class subdivision; it is also an indication of the determiners that may com-
bine with a noun, e.g. numerals with count nouns, but not with mass nouns.
Similarly, the ‘transitive’/‘intransitive’ subclassification of verbs relates to whether,
in the specified sense, the verb takes an object or not, and additionally whether
the sentence in which the verb occurs can be made passive.
For nouns, NODE also specifies when they can be used ‘as modifier’, before
another noun, with an adjectival function, e.g. keynote as in keynote address or
shadow as in shadow minister of . . . CED likewise notes such uses of some nouns,
but dictionaries may differ in their categorisations. One way of treating such
uses of nouns would be to recognise the derivation of an adjective by the word
formation process of ‘conversion’ (see Chapter 2): CED4 marks key, as in a key
person, as ‘modifier’, while NODE recognises an adjective key to cover this
usage. The other peculiarity of nouns that dictionaries often mark is when there
may be a mismatch between the form of a noun (singular or plural) and its use
syntactically. For example, darts and economics have a plural form but are usually
‘treated as sing(ular)’. On the other hand, singular so-called ‘collective’ nouns,
such as government or team may be ‘treated as sing or pl(ural)’. In NODE also, ‘in
sing’ is used to mark (the sense of ) a count noun that can only be used in the
singular (e.g. riot as in the garden was a riot of colour) or the sense of a mass noun
where an indefinite article may be used (e.g. wealth in a wealth of information).
For adjectives, NODE specifies three possible syntactic positions that they
may be restricted to: before the noun (‘attrib(utive)’), after a verb like be, become
or seem (‘predic(ative)’), and immediately after the noun (‘postpositive’). CED4’s
equivalent terms are: ‘prenominal’, ‘postpositive’ and ‘immediately postpositive’.
Here are some examples:

• attributive bridal, custom, geriatric, innermost, mere, opening, teenage, zero-sum

• predicative aglow (and many others with prefix a-), catching, disinclined,
legion, privy, tantamount, well (i.e. ‘not ill’)
• postpositive aplenty, designate, enough, galore, incarnate, par excellence, as well as
a number of adjectives connected with cooking and heraldry.

The case of verb syntax is more complicated. If a dictionary is to record the

peculiarities of each lexical item, then the crude transitive/intransitive distinc-
tion does not do justice to the syntactic operation of many verbs. Nor does the
 Beyond definition 109
threefold distinction of NODE: ‘with obj’, ‘no obj’, and ‘with adverbial’ (e.g.
behave, clamber). Unlike learners’ dictionaries (Chapter 11), native speaker dic-
tionaries generally do not systematically and comprehensively record the possi-
ble syntactic patterning of verbs. Few go beyond ‘transitive’ and ‘intransitive’.
However, compare the following entries for argue from CED4 and NODE:

argue 1 (intr) to quarrel; wrangle: they were always arguing until I arrived. 2
(intr; often foll. by for or against) to present supporting or opposing reasons
or cases in a dispute; reason. 3 (tr; may take a clause as object) to try to prove
by presenting reasons; maintain. 4 (tr; often passive) to debate or discuss: the
case was fully argued before agreement was reached. 5 (tr) to persuade: he argued me
into going. 6 (tr) to give evidence of; suggest: her looks argue despair.
[CED4]
argue 1 (reporting verb) give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea,
action, or theory; typically with the aim of persuading others to share one’s
view: [with clause] sociologists argue that inequalities in industrial societies are
being reduced | [with direct speech] ‘It stands to reason,’ she argued.
• [with obj.] (argue someone into/out of ) persuade someone to do or
not to do (something) by giving reasons: I tried to argue him out of it.
2 [no obj.] exchange or express diverging or opposite views, typically in a
heated or angry way: don’t argue with me | figurative I wasn’t going to argue
with a gun | [with obj.] she was too tired to argue the point.
[NODE]

These two dictionaries give considerably more syntactic information for verbs,
both by way of labels and in examples, than has been customary in general-
purpose dictionaries, even of desk size, until recently. NODE justifies this ap-
proach both by pointing to the role of grammar in distinguishing the meanings
or senses of lexemes and with the following argument:

the aim is to present information in such a way that it helps to explain the
structure of the language itself, not just the meanings of the individual
senses. For this reason, special attention has been paid to the grammar of
each word, and grammatical structures are given explicitly.
(p. xi)

9.6 Usage
All dictionaries have a set of labels to mark words or senses of words that are
restricted in some way in the contexts in which they may occur. The contextual
restrictions may be geographical (i.e. dialectal), historical (e.g. archaic), stylistic
(e.g. informal), according to topic (e.g. Botany), and so on. In this section, we
review the types and range of usage labels used in general-purpose dictionaries.
110 Beyond definition
9.6.1 Dialect
Dialect labels refer to geographical restriction, and we can take this to include
both national varieties and regional dialects within a national variety. Most
British dictionaries nowadays claim an international perspective and include
words peculiar to the vocabulary of other English-speaking countries, but still
largely confined to North America, Australia and New Zealand, and South
Africa. The newer Englishes of, say, the Indian subcontinent, or West Africa, or
the Caribbean, or Singapore tend to receive lesser attention. However, COD10,
for example, contains around fifty words marked ‘W. Indian’, and a rather
larger number labelled ‘Indian’, e.g.

• West Indian braata, dotish, fingle, higgler, mamguy, nancy story, spraddle, tafia
• Indian babu, charpoy, durzi, haveli, lakh, nullah, sadhu, zamindar.

NODE claims around 14,000 geographical labels spread through the diction-
ary, but these are mainly ‘regionalisms encountered in standard contexts in the
different English-speaking areas of the world’ (p. xvi). The largest number,
inevitably, belong to the vocabularies of English spoken in North America, for
which NODE has three labels: ‘N. Amer.’ (i.e. North American), ‘US’ (i.e.
United States), and ‘Canadian’. The last two are presumably for cases where the
restriction is more limited, e.g. in the case of blue box:

1. chiefly US an electronic device used to access long-distance telephone

lines illegally.
2. chiefly Canadian a blue plastic box for the collection of recyclable house-
hold materials.

A similar labelling is used for words specific to Australian and New Zealand
Englishes, where the majority are marked ‘Austral./NZ’ (e.g. mullock ‘rubbish,
nonsense’), because they are shared by both varieties, and some are marked
separately, rather more ‘Austral’ (e.g. gunyah ‘bush hut’) than ‘NZ’ (e.g. kumara,
‘sweet potato’). There is no such confusion about South African English words
(e.g. koppie ‘small hill’), though some are shared with other varieties, e.g. dingus
(shared with ‘N. Amer’) ‘a thing one cannot or does not wish to name specifi-
cally’, dropper (shared with ‘Austral./NZ’) ‘a light vertical stave in a fence’.
Words or senses that are exclusive to the British English variety are also appro-
priately marked (over 4,000 in NODE), e.g. fly-past, gobstopper, knacker, linctus,
nearside, peckish, scrapyard.
When it comes to dialects within Britain, NODE/COD10 are less specific.
While they have a label ‘Scottish’ and ‘N(orthern) English’ (often occurring
together for a word), all other dialect words are marked simply as ‘dialect’,
except that one word (scally) is noted as N(orth) W(est) English, and a handful
are labelled ‘black English’. LDEL and, more especially, CED have both a greater
 Beyond definition 111
representation of British English dialect words and a more differentiated label-
ling. CED4 notes in its Guide:

Regional dialects (Scot. and northern English dialect, Midland dialect, etc.) have
been specified as precisely as possible, even at the risk of overrestriction, in
order to give the reader an indication of the appropriate regional flavour.
(CED4, p. xxi)

So, chine, in the sense of ‘a deep fissure in the wall of a cliff ’, is labelled ‘Southern
English dialect’; flash meaning ‘a pond, esp. as produced as a consequence of
subsidence’ is marked ‘Yorkshire and Lancashire dialect’; maungy ‘(esp. of a
child) sulky, bad-tempered or peevish’ is labelled ‘West Yorkshire dialect’; snicket
‘a passageway between walls or fences’ has the label ‘Northern English dialect’;
and tump ‘a small mound or clump’ is marked ‘Western English dialect’.

9.6.2 Formality
A number of words or senses are marked as ‘formal’ or ‘informal’, though the
latter label usually greatly outnumbers the former: in COD10, for example, the
‘informal’ label occurs over seven times more frequently than the ‘formal’ label.
These terms relate to the formality of the context in which a word is deemed to
be appropriate. They are defined in the LDEL2 Guide as follows:

The label informal is used for words or meanings characteristic of conversa-

tion and casual writing (e.g. between friends and contemporaries) rather
than of official or formal speech or writing.
The label formal is used for words or meanings which are characteristic
of writing rather than speech (except for formal speech situations, such as
a lecture), and particularly of official, academic, literary, or self-important
writing. In other contexts, such words may seem over-elaborate or
pompous.
(LDEL2, p. xviii)

The term ‘colloquial’ is sometimes used instead of ‘informal’ (e.g. in Chambers).

Many dictionaries identify ‘slang’ as a point further down the formality scale,
but we shall deal with slang under 9.6.3.
Here are some examples of words marked as ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ in COD10
(you may need to look them up, if they are new to you):

• formal abnegate, circumambulate, emolument, gustation, jocose, lucubration, nor-

mative, pinguid, sapient, theretofore, wheresoever
• informal baby boom, beanfeast, dekko, expat, gasbag, haywire, junkie, lashings,
manky, nitty-gritty, once-over, prang, rozzer, shambolic, townie, vapourware,
wannabe, yonks, zilch.
112 Beyond definition
Informal terms, since they are the staple of ordinary conversation, have a ten-
dency to date; and you may consider that some of the terms listed might belong
to your parents’ or grandparents’ speech, but not to yours.

9.6.3 Status
By ‘status’ we mean the propriety of the use of a word, even in ordinary conver-
sation. Under ‘status’ we would include the term ‘taboo’. A taboo is defined
in COD10 as ‘a social or religious custom placing prohibition or restriction
on a particular thing or person’, while COD9 also includes as a second sense
‘a prohibition or restriction imposed on certain behaviour, word usage, etc., by
social custom’. A taboo word, therefore, is one that you would not use in
ordinary conversation, unless you wanted to shock. Such taboo words would
include: those connected with sexual and excretory functions, blasphemies,
and other ‘swear’ words. However, there is little left in our society that is taboo,
and so modern dictionaries no longer use the label; CED4 is an exception.
Not even COD9, which mentions the connection with ‘word usage’ in its
definition of taboo uses it as a label, preferring ‘coarse slang’ instead. In NODE
and COD10, this has become ‘vulgar slang’; LDEL2 and Chambers use simply
‘vulgar’.
In the Oxford dictionaries, then, the connection is made with ‘slang’, the
other term under this heading, and glossed by CED4 as follows:

Slang This refers to words or senses that are racy or extremely informal.
The appropriate contexts in which slang is used are restricted, for example,
to members of a particular social group or those engaged in a particular
activity. Slang words are inappropriate informal speech or writing.

‘Slang’ is, therefore, not just ‘very informal’; it implies a restriction beyond
simply the formality of the context of use, to defined social groups, and it
includes a consideration of appropriacy. It belongs with ‘taboo’. Even more so
than with informal words, the slang status of words may change over a relatively
short period of time and quickly become dated. Not only that, but people’s
tolerance of slang varies considerably, and it is no surprise that dictionaries
differ in their labelling of such words. In fact, COD10 does not use the label
‘slang’ on its own, unlike COD9, but only in conjunction with a preceding
defining adjective, such as ‘nautical’, ‘military’, ‘theatrical’, ‘black’, as well as
‘vulgar’. A number of the words marked as ‘slang’ in COD9 have become
‘informal’ in COD10, e.g. acid (= LSD), aggro, awesome (= excellent), banger
(= sausage, old car), dough (= money). However, those that are marked ‘coarse
slang’ in COD9 generally have the label ‘vulgar slang’ in COD10, e.g. arse, crap,
piss, turd, not to mention the many words for the male and female genitalia.
Incidentally, though, fart is labelled ‘coarse slang’ in COD9, but only ‘informal’
in COD10.
 Beyond definition 113
9.6.4 Effect
There is a set of usage labels used in dictionaries that relate to the effect that a
word or sense is intended by the speaker or writer to produce in the hearer or
reader. Any dictionary usually makes a selection from these labels. One set
reflects the attitude of the speaker and includes: ‘derogatory’ (intending to be
disrespectful), ‘pejorative’ (intending to show contempt), ‘appreciative’ (intending
to show a positive attitude), ‘humorous’ or ‘jocular’ (conveying a light-hearted
attitude). Closely related is the term ‘offensive’, which may have intent on the
part of the speaker or may be unconscious, but which could be taken by a hearer
as offensive, either racially or in some other way. Other kinds of ‘effect’ label
include: ‘euphemistic’, i.e. using an oblique word to refer to an unpleasant
topic; ‘literary’ and ‘poetic’, i.e. words that tend to be confined to literary texts
or poetry and have a ‘literary’ effect when they are used elsewhere. Here are
some examples:

• derogatory banana republic, bimbo, cronyism, fat cat, lowbrow, newfangled,

psychobabble, slaphead, woodentop (from COD10)
• jocular argy-bargy, bounder, doughty, funniosity, industrial-strength, leaderene,
osculate, purloin, square-eyed, walkies (from COD9)
• offensive bogtrotter (= Irish person), cripple (= disabled person), mongrel (=
person of mixed parentage), wog (= foreigner, especially non-white) (from
COD10)
• euphemistic cloakroom (for ‘toilet’), ethnic cleansing (for ‘forced mass expul-
sion of a group of people from an area’), interfere with (for ‘sexually molest’),
passing (for ‘death’) (from COD9)
• literary apace, bestrew, connubial, fulgent, incarnadine, nevermore, plenteous, slumber,
vainglory, wonted (from COD10).

Even more than with formality and status labels, we would expect effect labels
to vary between dictionaries, since they require a greater exercise of judgement
on the part of the lexicographer and are more likely to be variously perceived.

9.6.5 History
Most dictionaries include labels for words or senses that are either no longer in
current use or whose currency is questionable or suspect. The term ‘obsolete’
refers to words or senses that have definitely ceased to be used. It is, of course, an
important term in the OED, but in dictionaries that purport to contain current
vocabulary, it is not often used. LDEL2 includes it, however, with the gloss:

The label obs (obsolete) means there is no evidence of use of a word or

meaning since 1755 (the date of publication of Samuel Johnson’s A Diction-
ary of the English Language). This label is a comment on the word being
defined, not on the thing it designates.
(p. xvii)
114 Beyond definition
For example, fay, meaning ‘faith’ is marked ‘obs’ in LDEL2; in SOED4 it is
marked as ‘long archaic, rare’. CED4 also claims to use the ‘obsolete’ label and
notes that ‘in specialist or technical fields the label often implies that the term
has been superseded’ (p. xx); it also uses the label ‘old fashioned’ (e.g. of the
‘illegitimate’ sense of bastard), which it does not discuss in the ‘Guide’.
NODE and COD10 use the labels ‘dated’, ‘archaic’, and ‘historical’ to mark
words or senses no longer current; and to these we might add the label ‘rare’.
These labels are defined as follows:

‘dated’: no longer used by the majority of English speakers, but still en-
countered, especially among the older generation.
‘archaic’: old-fashioned language, not in ordinary use today, though some-
times used to give a deliberately old-fashioned effect and also encountered
in the literature of the past.
‘historical’: still used today, but in reference to some practice or artefact that
is no longer part of the modern world.
‘rare’: not in normal use.

The ‘historical’ label marks not words as such but the things that they denote
as being no longer current. It is not clear how ‘rare’ might differ from ‘archaic’.
Perhaps some examples (from COD10) will help to distinguish them:

• dated aeronaut, cobble (= repair, e.g. shoes), gamp (= umbrella), jerry (= chamber
pot), necktie, picture palace (= cinema), spiffing, wireless (= radio)
• archaic asunder, chapman, fandangle, guidepost, mayhap, poltroon, therewithal,
vizard
• historical approved school, dolly tub, footpad, jongleur, margrave, pocket borough,
safety lamp, tumbril, velocipede
• rare argute (= shrewd), comminatory (= threatening, vengeful), lustrate (= purify,
e.g. by sacrifice), toxophilite (= archer), vaticinate (= foretell future).

9.6.6 Topic or field

Where a word or sense is restricted to a, usually specialised or technical, field of
study or activity, dictionaries generally add an appropriate label. Topics may
range from the sciences, technologies and medicine, through the professions
such as law or business, to sports and leisure pursuits. The label marks a word or
sense as belonging to the technical vocabulary of the topic. Here are a few
examples to illustrate the point, taken from NODE:

• handshaking computing
• periventricular anatomy and medicine
• quiddity philosophy
• sopranino music
• top edge cricket
 Beyond definition 115
• weather helm nautical
• white hole astronomy.

9.6.7 Disputed usage

Dictionaries regard one of their functions as being to draw attention to words
whose usage is a matter of controversy, and perhaps to offer an opinion for the
linguistically insecure. The word or sense that is the subject of dispute may
be labelled as such, e.g. ‘disp’ in COD9, as for decimate in the sense of ‘kill or
remove a large proportion of ’. More often, a dictionary will append a ‘usage
note’ to explain the nature of the dispute and proffer advice, e.g. in NODE, for
disinterested:

Nowhere are the battle lines more deeply drawn in usage questions than
over the difference between disinterested and uninterested. According
to traditional guidelines, disinterested should never be used to mean ‘not
interested’ (i.e. it is not a synonym for uninterested) but only to mean
‘impartial’, as in the judgements of disinterested outsiders are likely to be more
useful. Ironically, the earliest recorded sense of disinterested is for the
disputed sense. Today, the ‘incorrect’ use of disinterested is widespread:
around 20 per cent of citations on the British National Corpus for disin-
terested are for this sense.

Besides usage notes, CED4 also has a label ‘not standard’ to apply to appropriate
items, such as ain’t or worser. LDEL2 has the labels ‘nonstandard’ and ‘substand-
ard’ and distinguishes them as follows:

The label nonstandard is used for words or meanings that are quite
commonly used but considered incorrect by most educated users of the
language:
lay . . . vi . . . 5 nonstandard LIE

The label substandard is used for words or meanings used by some speakers
but not generally considered to be part of standard English:
learn . . . vb . . . 2 substandard to teach. (p. xviii)

This is about as prescriptive as it gets. CED4 labels this sense of learn as ‘not
standard’, and it provides a usage note to discuss the differences between lay and
lie. By comparison, we might note that Chambers labels ain’t as ‘coll(oquial)’ and
the disputed usages of learn and lay as ‘illit(erate)’.

9.7 Further reading

For information on how an individual dictionary or edition deals with the
topics discussed in this chapter the ‘Guide to the Dictionary’ is the place to start.
116 Beyond definition
Dick Hudson’s article on ‘The linguistic foundations for lexical research and
dictionary design’ in the International Journal of Lexicography (1988) surveys the
lexical information that dictionaries should take account of. Bo Svensén’s Prac-
tical Lexicography (1993) has chapters on most of the concerns of this chapter.
Sidney Landau has a chapter on usage (Chapter 5) in Dictionaries: the Art and
Craft of Lexicography (1989, 2001). Juhani Norri has two articles in IJL on label-
ling: ‘Regional labels in some British and American dictionaries’ (vol. 9, 1996),
and ‘Labelling of derogatory words in dictionaries’ (vol. 13, 2000).