📖 D — The English dictionary · page 27

dialect — Everyday, meaning 1: A dialect is a form of a language spoken in a particular area or by a particular group, with its own words, grammar and pronunciation.↗ Example: My grandad speaks a strong Yorkshire dialect.↗ · In some dialects, «wee» means small.↗ · The book's characters speak in dialect.↗ · Every region has its own dialect words.↗ · Standard English is used in most school writing.↗ · The children laughed at the funny dialect word for «bread roll».↗ · American English and British English differ like dialects.↗ · I have modified the dialect and changed “Mally” into “Molly.”↗

dialogue — Everyday, meaning 1: Dialogue is the words that characters speak to each other in a story, play or film.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A dialogue is a conversation between two or more people.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Dialogue is a formal talk between groups or countries to solve a problem.↗ Example: Put inverted commas around the dialogue.↗ · Start a new line each time someone new speaks in your dialogue.↗ · The film's dialogue is very funny.↗ · The two countries began a dialogue about peace.↗ · Click OK in the dialogue box.↗ · We acted out a dialogue between a shopkeeper and a customer.↗

diameter — Everyday, meaning 1: A straight line going from one side of a circle to the other, passing through the centre.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The length of that line; how wide a circle or round thing is.↗ Example: The diameter of the circle is 10 cm.↗ · The radius is half the diameter.↗ · The Earth's diameter is about 12,700 km.↗ · Measure the diameter of the pizza.↗ · The pipe is 5 cm in diameter.↗ · The circumference is pi times the diameter.↗ · She was three feet and a half in diameter, and made of the very best gunpowder.↗

diametrically — Everyday, meaning 1: Completely; as different as two things can be, used mostly in «diametrically opposed» or «diametrically opposite».↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (maths) In the position of the two ends of a diameter: straight across a circle through the centre.↗ Example: Their views on homework are diametrically opposed.↗ · The two teams have diametrically opposite styles of play.↗ · Mark two points diametrically opposite each other on the circle.↗ · (maths) Twelve and six on a clock face are diametrically opposite.↗ · (formal) The two reports reached diametrically opposed conclusions.↗

diamond — Everyday, meaning 1: A diamond is a very hard, clear, sparkling precious stone.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A diamond is a shape with four equal sides standing on one of its corners, like ◊ — in maths called a rhombus.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Diamonds is one of the four suits in a pack of cards, with red ◊ shapes.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: In baseball, the diamond is the field with four bases.↗ Everyday, meaning 5: Informally, calling someone a diamond means they are a kind, good person.↗ Example: She wore a ring with a small diamond.↗ · Diamond is the hardest natural material on Earth.↗ · Draw a diamond with four equal sides.↗ · I picked the queen of diamonds.↗ · The kite was shaped like a diamond.↗ · Diamonds are dug out of the ground in mines.↗ · The players ran around the baseball diamond.↗ · ‘No doubt you are a diamond?’↗ · The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.↗ (Prophets JER.17.1, JPS 1917)↗

diamondback — Everyday, meaning 1: A diamondback rattlesnake: a large, very venomous American rattlesnake with a pattern of diamond shapes along its back and a rattle on its tail.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A diamondback terrapin: a small turtle with diamond-shaped patterns on its shell that lives in salty marshes along the east coast of the USA.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Any animal with diamond shapes on its back, for example the diamondback moth, a small pest of cabbages.↗ Example: A diamondback rattlesnake lay coiled in the shade of a rock.↗ · The diamondback shook its rattle to warn the hikers away.↗ · Diamondbacks are the largest rattlesnakes in North America.↗ · The ranger told us to back away slowly from the diamondback.↗ · A diamondback terrapin was sunning itself on the muddy bank.↗ · The terrapin's shell has a pattern like little diamonds.↗ · Diamondback moth caterpillars had eaten holes in the cabbages.↗ · In the zoo's reptile house we saw a western diamondback behind thick glass.↗

diaphragm — Everyday, meaning 1: The diaphragm is a large, flat, dome-shaped muscle under your lungs that helps you breathe.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A diaphragm is a thin sheet or disc that moves or vibrates, such as in a microphone or speaker.↗ Example: The diaphragm helps the lungs fill with air.↗ · When you breathe in, your diaphragm moves down.↗ · Hiccups are sudden jumps of the diaphragm.↗ · Singers learn to breathe using their diaphragm.↗ · The diaphragm sits between the chest and the stomach.↗ · A microphone has a thin diaphragm that shakes when you speak.↗ · Man is a microcosm, as the neck separates rationality from vitality, so does diaphragm the vitality from the vegetativeness.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗

diarrhoea — Everyday, meaning 1: Diarrhoea is an illness or condition in which a person has to go to the toilet very often, and the poo is runny and watery.↗ Example: She stayed home from school with diarrhoea.↗ · Wash your hands to stop germs that cause diarrhoea.↗ · Drink lots of water if you have diarrhoea.↗ · The baby had diarrhoea, so the parents called the doctor.↗ · Bad food can give you sickness and diarrhoea.↗ · Dirty water can cause diarrhoea.↗

diary — Everyday, meaning 1: A diary is a book where you write what happens each day and how you feel.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A diary is also a book or calendar where you write plans and appointments.↗ Example: She writes 2 pages in her diary every day.↗ · The diary has 120 pages.↗ · How many days until the diary is full?↗ · He bought 3 diaries.↗ · Write a diary entry about your weekend.↗ · I keep a diary with a lock.↗ · We kept a diary of the bean plant's growth.↗ · Anne Frank wrote a famous diary.↗ · The General's lady kept a diary, and in this diary was recorded every ball she attended and every visit she received.↗

diatom — Everyday, meaning 1: A tiny one-celled living thing, a kind of algae, that lives in water and has a glassy shell made of silica.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (science) diatoms make a large part of the oxygen we breathe and are food for many sea animals.↗ Example: Under the microscope, the diatom looked like a tiny glass jewel.↗ · Diatoms float in oceans, lakes and rivers.↗ · Diatoms make oxygen using sunlight, like plants.↗ · Small sea creatures eat diatoms.↗ · Our class drew different diatom shapes: circles, boats and stars.↗ · Old diatom shells pile up on the sea floor over millions of years.↗ · Scientists study diatoms to learn how clean a river is.↗

dibs — Everyday, meaning 1: (slang) A claim to have or do something first: if you say «Dibs on the front seat!», you mean you get it.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (slang, UK, old) Money.↗ Example: Dibs on the window seat!↗ · I called dibs on the last slice of pizza.↗ · You can't have it, Ellie already has dibs.↗ · Dibs on going first!↗ · Who's got dibs on the top bunk?↗ · He shouted «dibs!» before anyone else could.↗

dice — Everyday, meaning 1: Dice are small cubes with dots from 1 to 6 on their sides, used in games.↗ A dice has 6 faces.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: One is properly a die, two or more are dice, but many people say «a dice».↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To dice food is to cut it into small cubes.↗ Example: She rolled two dice and got 4 and 5.↗ · What is the biggest sum of two dice?↗ · A dice has 6 faces.↗ · He rolled the dice 10 times.↗ · Roll the dice to start the game.↗ · The chance of rolling a 6 is 1 in 6.↗ · Dice the onion into small pieces.↗ · We played a dice game in maths.↗ · "An' what are you doing with that box and dice I see in your hand?"↗

dick — Everyday, meaning 1: (a name) Dick is an old short form of the name Richard, as in Dick Whittington.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (rude, slang) A rude word for a man's private part, the penis.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (rude, slang) A rude insult for a mean or annoying person.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (old US slang) A detective («private dick»).↗ Example: Dick Whittington went to London with his cat.↗ · We watched the pantomime of Dick Whittington.↗ · «Moby-Dick» is a story about a white whale.↗ · In the old book, Dick and Jane go shopping.↗ · The detective was called a private dick in old films.↗ · Calling someone a dick is rude and not allowed in class.↗ · Dick heard him, and came into the room.↗

dickens — Everyday, meaning 1: Charles Dickens was a famous English writer of long novels, such as «Oliver Twist», «A Christmas Carol» and «Great Expectations».↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (old-fashioned, mild) «The dickens» is a gentle word for the devil, used to show surprise or annoyance, as in «What the dickens is that?».↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A Dickens novel or Dickens's world can mean a picture of poor, dirty, crowded old city streets.↗ Example: Our class is reading «A Christmas Carol» by Charles Dickens.↗ · Dickens wrote about poor children working in London.↗ · Scrooge is one of Dickens's most famous characters.↗ · What the dickens is all that noise?↗ (old-fashioned)↗ · Grandpa said the puppy was as cute as the dickens.↗ (US, old-fashioned)↗ · The old workhouse looked like something out of Dickens.↗ · We watched a play of «Oliver Twist», a Dickens story.↗ · "What the dickens," said the squire, "do you mean by lying in the middle of the road like that?"↗

dictation — Everyday, meaning 1: Dictation is saying words aloud so that someone else can write them down exactly.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A dictation can be the passage that is read aloud for pupils to write.↗ Example: We had a spelling dictation today.↗ · The prince wrote the letter at the vizier's dictation.↗ · Write down every word of the teacher's dictation.↗ · Immediately Joseph sat down and wrote down the sefer Yetzirah at the dictation of B'"usy."↗ (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗ · Immediately Joseph sat down and wrote down these words at the dictation of ty"Bsy [Ben Sira], and he wrote them in five books on the earth : Sefer Yetzirah, etc." (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

dictator — Everyday, meaning 1: A ruler who has complete power over a country, was usually not fairly elected, and does not allow people to disagree.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal) Someone who tells others what to do and won't listen.↗ Example: The dictator banned all newspapers that criticised him.↗ · In a democracy, people choose their leaders; a dictator does not let them.↗ · The people finally overthrew the dictator.↗ · My brother acts like a dictator when he holds the TV remote.↗ · History has many cruel dictators.↗ · A dictator often controls the army and the police.↗

diction — Everyday, meaning 1: Diction is the way a person chooses and says words, especially how clear or grand their speech or writing is.↗ Example: Her diction was so clear that every word could be heard.↗ · The old book has a stiff, formal diction.↗ · Good diction helps an actor to be understood.↗

dictionary — Everyday, meaning 1: A dictionary is a book or website that lists words in alphabetical order and tells you what they mean, how to spell and say them.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A book that gives the words of one language in another language, like an English–French dictionary.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (computing) A list of names paired with values in a computer program.↗ Example: Look up «enormous» in the dictionary.↗ · Our teacher keeps a big dictionary on her desk.↗ · I used an online dictionary to check the spelling.↗ · She bought a French dictionary for her holiday.↗ · Words in a dictionary are in alphabetical order.↗ · The dictionary says «colour» is spelled «color» in the US.↗ · My little brother has a picture dictionary.↗ · The youth who knew the dictionary and newspaper by heart had a black horse, and he who knew all about the corporation laws received a milk-white steed.↗ · Frey in his dictionary gives ChHM as the plural word, lives, or vitae.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗ · This passage is explained by Isaac Satanow in his Hebrew Dictionary entitled Sephath Emeth, p. 44, b: (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗ · Bible dictionaries generally give the word as Cherubim, but in Hebrew the initial letter is always K and not Ch.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗

diddle — Everyday, meaning 1: (informal, UK) To cheat someone, especially out of money, in a sneaky way.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal) To waste time or fiddle about with something.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: In the nursery rhyme «Hey diddle diddle», it is a nonsense sound.↗ Example: The shop diddled us out of ten pounds.↗ · Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle.↗ · Stop diddling about and get ready!↗ · I think I've been diddled; this toy is broken.↗ · The con man diddled lots of old people.↗ · He diddled with the radio knobs.↗