dictionaries

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of dictionary.

   Older dictionaries often record words that have since fallen out of use.

   Translators kept three bilingual dictionaries open across their desk.

   Note

   The regular plural, made by turning the final -y into -ies, as with other nouns ending in a consonant plus -y. It serves every sense of the noun alike: printed dictionaries on a shelf, people regarded as walking dictionaries, and the key-and-value dictionaries of programming. The same spelling also serves as the verb's present-tense form, and an article or a following verb usually shows which one is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of dictionary.

   Note

   Most uses take an object. Someone dictionaries an unfamiliar word by looking it up, or dictionaries a new coinage by adding it to a dictionary. The intransitive use, meaning to compile a dictionary, is rare. The form looks exactly like the plural noun, so the subject in front of it is what marks it as a verb.

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