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• present participles dropping a final silent
e
and adding -
ing
to the stem, e.g.,
change
→
changing; dance
→
dancing
Other forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
•verbs that inflect by doubling a consonant, e.g., bat
→
batted, batting
•verbs ending in -
y
that inflect by changing -
y
to -
i
, e.g., try
→
tries, tried
•verbs in which past tense and past participle do not follow the regular -
ed
pattern, e.g., feel
→
past and past participle felt; awake
→
past awoke; past
participle awoken
• present participles that add -
ing
but retain a final
e
(in order to make clear that
the pronunciation of
g
remains soft), e.g., singe
→
singeing
Nouns
Plurals formed by adding -
s
(or -
es
when they end in -
s
, -
x
, -
z
, -
sh
, or soft -
ch
) are
regarded as regular and are not shown, e.g., dog
→
dogs; lunch
→
lunches
Other plural forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
• nouns ending in -
i
or -
o
, e.g., agouti
→
agoutis; albino
→
albinos
• nouns ending in -
a
, -
um
, or -
us
that are or appear to be Latinate forms, e.g.,
alumna
→
alumnae; spectrum
→
spectra; alveolus
→
alveoli
• nouns ending in -
y
, e.g., fly
→
flies; party
→
parties
• nouns with more than one plural form, e.g., crux
→
cruxes or cruces; money
→
moneys or monies
• nouns with plurals showing a change in the stem, e.g., foot
→
feet; louse
→
lice
• nouns with plurals unchanged from the singular form, e.g., sheep
→
sheep;
bonsai
→
bonsai
Adjectives
The following forms for comparative and superlative are regarded as regular and
are not shown in the dictionary:
•words of one syllable adding -
er
and -
est
, e.g., great
→
greater, greatest
•words of one syllable ending in silent
e
, which drop the -
e
and add -
er
and -
est
,
e.g., brave
→
braver, bravest
•words that form the comparative and superlative by adding “more” and “most”;
e.g., beautiful
→
more beautiful, most beautiful
Other forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
• adjectives that form the comparative and superlative by doubling a final
consonant, e.g., hot
→
hotter, hottest
•two-syllable adjectives that form the comparative and superlative with -
er
and -
est
(typically adjectives ending in -
y
and their negative forms), e.g., happy
→
happier, happiest; unhappy
→
unhappier, unhappiest
Syllabification
In the
New Oxford American Dictionary
, syllable breaks are shown for main entries
and derivatives. Although all possible breaks are shown, there are some conven-
tions that govern how writers break words at the ends of lines. Guidelines include:
•Avoid a break that will leave one letter and a hyphen at the end of the line or one
letter (or one letter and a punctuation mark such as a period) at the beginning of
a line.
•Avoid breaking a word that is already hyphenated except at that hyphen (e.g.,
self-affirmation
;
leather-bound
).
•Never break proper names.
•Avoid breaking abbreviations.
PWE350_introToDict0707.pm65 07/09/2004, 15:5238
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