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Tips for speeding up your search.

Remember, this is a work in progress that you can use NOW rather than waiting years for its perfection and publication in unwieldy, expensive volumes. Both dictionaries work on the same basic principles:

• Just click on the letter you want, then the group, then the word.

• Abbreviations are listed at the beginning of each letter.

• (see ....) means there are no entries in the file, whereas (from ....) contains entries for that specific form.

• Search by the least common word in the sentence rather than words like Gott, auch, König, Sonne, roi, est, a, et, etc.

• Contractions, e.g., l'été, d'après, l'homme, are listed alphabetically ignoring the apostrophy, thus, lété, daprès, lhomme.

• Adverb and particle combinations, e.g., auch noch, are listed alphabetically by the first item, auch, and then alphabetically by what follows. E.g., "auch noch sie" after "auch noch die Tafel".

• Verb forms used with sein and werden are listed under the adjectival form rather than under the source verb. E.g., hat angebracht is listed under an.bringen, but ist or wird angebracht or angebrachte Kartusche is found under angebracht. In addition, anzubringen is listed under unzubringen rather than an.bringen. This does not, however, apply to the French where verb forms are listed alphabetically whether or not they are preceded by any other verb.

• In the subheadings "modals" is being changed to "auxiliary verbs". It means the infinitive form of the verb is the object of a conjugated verb.

• Use the search feature on your browser to search a page with numerous examples by a second word in your sentence. To type foreign letters (make sure the number lock on your number key pad is ON): while holding down the ALT key, type (on the number pad):
  0196 for Ä, 0228 for ä,
  0193 for Á, 0225 for á,
  0192 for À, 0224 for à,
  0194 for Â, 0226 for â,
  0199 for Ç, 0231 for ç,
  0201 for É, 0233 for é,
  0200 for È, 0232 for è,
  0202 for Ê, 0234 for ê,
  0207 for Ï, 0239 for ï,
  0206 for Î, 0239 for î,
  0214 for Ö, 0246 for ö,
  0212 for Ô, 0244 for ô,
  0223 for ß,
  0220 for Ü, 0252 for ü,
  0219 for Û, 0251 for û.

• HGL = a hieroglyph, COPT = a Coptic word, GREEK = a Greek word, TITLE = a work, etc. Ignore items in parenthesis, e.g., (Er4), (H90), (145), etc. (these codes are useful to the staff).

• Also don't forget to experiment with the free sample and find what works best for you.

• And please make liberal use the comments or suggestion boxes found on every page.