To acquaint yourself thoroughly with a word--or a man--
involves effort, application. You must go about the work seriously,
intelligently.
One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the
primary, the original meaning of the word. You must go to the source. If
the word is of recent formation, and is native rather than naturalized
English, you have only to look through the definitions given. Such a word
will not cause you much trouble. But if the word is derived from primitive
English or from a foreign language, you must seek its origin, not in one
of the numbered subheads of the definition, but in an etymological record
you will perceive within brackets or parentheses. Here you will find the
Anglo-Saxon (Old English), Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian,
Scandinavian, or other word from which sprang the word you are studying,
and along with this authentic original you may find cognate words in other
languages. These you may examine if you care to observe their resemblance
to your word, but the examination is not necessary. It could teach you
only the earlier or other _forms_ of your word, whereas what you are
after is the original _meaning_.
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