A dictionary is not for show.  You must learn to use it.  What ordinarily passes for use is in fact abuse.  Wherein?  Let us say that you turn to your lexicon for the meaning of a word.  Of the various definitions given, you disregard all save the one which enables the word to make sense in its present context, or which fits your preconception of what the word should stand for.  Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact with yourself that no more will you so do.  At best you have tided over a transitory need, or have verified a surmise.  You have not truly learned the word, brought it into a vassal’s relationship with you, so fixed it in memory that henceforth, night or day, you can take it up like a familiar tool.

This procedure is blundering, farcical, futile, incorrect.  To suppose you have learned a word by so cursory a glance at its resources is like supposing you have learned a man through having had him render you some temporary and trivial service, as lending you a match or telling you the time of day.  To acquaint yourself thoroughly with a word—­or a man—­ involves effort, application.  You must go about the work seriously, intelligently.

One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the primary, the original meaning of the word.  You must go to the source.  If the word is of recent formation, and is native rather than naturalized English, you have only to look through the definitions given.  Such a word will not cause you much trouble.  But if the word is derived from primitive English or from a foreign language, you must seek its origin, not in one of the numbered subheads of the definition, but in an etymological record you will perceive within brackets or parentheses.  Here you will find the Anglo-Saxon (Old English), Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, or other word from which sprang the word you are studying, and along with this authentic original you may find cognate words in other languages.  These you may examine if you care to observe their resemblance to your word, but the examination is not necessary.  It could teach you only the earlier or other forms of your word, whereas what you are after is the original meaning.  This too is set down within the brackets; if your search is in earnest, you cannot possible miss it.  And having discovered this original meaning, you must get it in mind; it is one of the really significant things about the word.  Your next step is to find the present import of the word.  Look, therefore, through the modern definitions.  Of these there may be too many, with too delicate shadings in thought between them, for you to keep all clearly in mind.  In fact you need not try.  Consider them of course, but out of them seek mainly the drift, the central meaning.  After a little practice you will be able to disengage it from the others.