User Manual

30
Introduzione al dizionario
GUIDE TO THE DICTIONARY
Arrangement and order of terms
The dictionary lists as separate headwords simple words which are considered as
single units.
Order within each entry
The letters A, B, C, etc., indicate the part of speech of a word (noun, adjective,
adverb, etc.).
Numbers in bold face (1, 2, 3, etc.) indicate different meanings of the word.
The various meanings are often:
• accompanied by a brief explanation in Italian, and
•followed by examples.
Compound words
These are given under the headword of the first component.
Anyone looking for compound words in English must be aware of the fact that the use
of the hyphen in English is very uncertain, fluctuating and continuously evolving.
Compound words will therefore be found under the headword which corresponds to
the first component. If not, they are in fact probably single non-hyphenated words,
and as such will be found as separate headwords.
Derivation from a verb
Adjectives and nouns which derive from verbs are given as separate headwords.
The section of the entry preceded by a bullet (
) lists:
• technical meanings,
• compound nouns.
• idioms or figures of speech
• proverbs
The order within this section is alphabetical, but compound nouns having the
headword as their first element precede those having the headword as their second
element.
Adverbs ending in -ly and -mente and nouns ending in -ness
Generally speaking, adverbs which can be easily derived from their corresponding
adjectives by adding the suffixes
-ly and -mente respectively, have not been listed in
the dictionary, unless alphabetically removed from their adjectives. However, all those
adverbs which present particular semantic difficulties are listed. The same criterion
has been followed for the many English abstract nouns ending in -ness .
Prefixes
Only the most common prefixes (e.g. self-, un-) are given separate entries.
Homographs
Homographs (i.e. words spelt the same way but having different meanings) are
treated as separate entries, especially if they have different derivations. They are
indicated with a bold-face figure in brackets.
False friends
The symbol
signals the presence of a false friend, namely, a word which is similar
in English and Italian but which has different meanings.
Basic English and Italian
The 4,300 most important English terms for learners are indicated with a diamond
(
). The 4,400 most important Italian terms are marked in the same way.
Cultural notes
The symbol
identifies a note on the culture, history and institutions of English-
speaking nations.
Usage notes
The symbol
warns the reader of a possible usage issue.
Proper nouns
Those which are spelt identically in both languages have not been recorded, except
for when they are connected with specific expressions. Those proper nouns which
possess an Italianized translation can be found in the main body of the dictionary.