Dictionary

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/dictionary

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the earliest known lexicographical records?Cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia dating to approximately 2300 BCE
2. What is the key technological advancement?The printing press enabled mass production and wider distribution of dictionaries
3. Why did people make dictionaries a long time ago?People made early word lists to keep track of important words for work and study. In ancient Mesopotamia, these lists helped scholars and officials translate between Sumerian and Akkadian.
4. How did the printing press change dictionaries?When the printing press was invented in the 15th century, dictionaries could be printed in large numbers. This made them available to more people, not just scholars, and helped spread knowledge about languages.

Lexicography: The practice of compiling and writing dictionaries.
Corpus Linguistics: The study of language through the analysis of large collections of text and speech.
Neologism: A newly coined word or expression.