Reference Works - High School

You'll be a walking encyclopedia once you learn this list all about reference works. Review bibliographies, catalogues, periodicals, parts of a dictionary entry, and much more.
30 words 119 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. abecedarian
    alphabetically arranged, as for beginning readers
  2. almanac
    an annual publication arranged according to the calendar
  3. alphabetical
    arranged in order according to the alphabet
  4. appendix
    supplementary material collected at the back of a book
  5. article
    nonfictional prose forming a part of a publication
  6. atlas
    a collection of maps in book form
  7. bibliography
    a list of writings with time and place of publication
  8. catalogue
    a complete list of things, usually arranged systematically
  9. concordance
    an index of all words in a book along with their contexts
  10. database
    an organized body of related information
  11. definition
    a brief explanation of the meaning of a word or phrase
  12. dictionary
    a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words
  13. directory
    an alphabetical list of names and contact information
  14. encyclopedia
    a reference work containing articles on various topics
  15. entry
    an item inserted in a written record
  16. entry word
    the form of a word that heads a lexical entry and is alphabetized in a dictionary
  17. etymology
    a history of a word
  18. glossary
    an alphabetical list of technical terms in a field
  19. guide word
    a word printed at the top of the page of a dictionary or other reference book to indicate the first or last item on that page
  20. index
    alphabetical listing of names and topics with page numbers
  21. journal
    a periodical dedicated to a particular subject
  22. lexicon
    a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words
  23. library catalogue
    an enumeration of all the resources of a library
  24. periodical
    a publication that appears at fixed intervals
  25. pronunciation
    the way a word or a language is customarily spoken
  26. reference
    a book from which you can seek authoritative facts
  27. search engine
    a computer program that retrieves documents or files or data from a database or from a computer network (especially from the internet)
  28. syllabication
    forming or dividing words into syllables
  29. table of contents
    a list of what is included and where it can be found
  30. thesaurus
    a book containing a classified list of synonyms
Created on Wed Jan 11 15:09:56 EST 2017 (updated Wed Mar 29 15:38:27 EDT 2017)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.