Webster's Unabridged: Search Fields

You can search Webster's Unabridged by the following fields:

• Headword
• Keyword
• Etymology Keyword
• Author/Quotation Keyword
• Part of Speech

Headword

From the Search page, you can use the Headword field to search for any word or phrase contained within the heading of each dictionary entry. To enter terms into the search box:

• browse a list of headwords from which you can select terms to transfer back to the search box (entries will be preceded by the exact operator);

  or

• type your search terms directly into the Headword search box.

You may also:

• copy and paste your term into the Headword search box.

Search terms may consist of either single words or phrases.

For example:

When searching in the Headword field, you can use truncation to retrieve common or similar variants appearing as headwords in the dictionary. If you choose to search for more than one term, you can also combine them using Boolean and proximity searching.

Keyword

From the Search page, you can use the Keyword field to search for any word or phrase within each dictionary entry. To enter items into the search box:

• browse a list of dictionary keywords from which you can select terms to transfer back to the search box;

  or

• type your search terms directly into the Keyword search box. Search terms may consist of either single words or phrases.

For example:

When searching in the Keyword field, you can use truncation to retrieve dictionary entries containing common or similar keywords. If you choose to search for more than one term, you can also combine them using Boolean and proximity searching.

Etymology Keyword

From the Search page, you can limit a search to keywords appearing within the etymology field of dictionary entries. For example, an Etymology Keyword search on the word wager will retrieve entries which contain wager in their etymologies.

However the search does not retrieve the etymology of the search term for entries where the search term does not appear within the etymology field. For example, a search on the Etymology Keyword hoax returns no hits because there are no etymologies in the dictionary containing the word hoax. To retrieve the etymology of the word hoax simply type hoax in the Headword Search box

To enter a term in the Etymology Keyword search box:

• browse a list of author and quotation keywords from which you can select terms to transfer back to the search box;

  or

• type your search term directly into the Etymology Keyword search box.

For example:

When searching in the Etymology Keyword field, you can use truncation to retrieve variants of a search term. If you choose to search for more than one word, you can also combine them using Boolean and proximity searching.

Author/Quotation Keyword

From the Search page, you can limit a search to keywords appearing within the citation field of dictionary entries. Where citations are attributed to particular authors, the author names are also included in the Keyword search. To enter a term in the Author/Quotation Keyword search box:

• browse a list of author and quotation keywords from which you can select terms to transfer back to the search box;

  or

• type your search term directly into the Author/Quotation Keyword search box.

For example:

When searching in the Author/Quotation Keyword field, you can use truncation to retrieve variants of an author's name or variant quotation keywords. If you choose to search for more than one word, you can also combine them using Boolean and proximity searching.

Part of Speech

To restrict your search to a specific part of speech, select the required function label from the Part of Speech drop-down list. The default setting is 'All'.

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(WU version 96:1)