science

WordReference.com

WordReference.com is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand WordReference.com rather than just read about it. In short: WordReference is an online translation dictionary for, among others, the language pairs English–French, English–Italian, English–Spanish, French–Spanish, Spanish–Portuguese and English–Portuguese. WordReference formerly had Oxford Unabridged and Concise dictionaries available for a subscription.

Key takeaways

WordReference.com belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect WordReference.com to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of WordReference.com from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

WordReference is an online translation dictionary for, among others, the language pairs English–French, English–Italian, English–Spanish, French–Spanish, Spanish–Portuguese and English–Portuguese. WordReference formerly had Oxford Unabridged and Concise dictionaries available for a subscription. These dictionaries contained more translations than the free ones. In 2008, the price was €30 (US$44) per year. As of June 2008, more language pairs had been created: English–German, English–Russian, English–Polish, English–Romanian, English–Czech, English–Greek, English–Turkish, English–Chinese, English–Japanese, English–Korean, English–Arabic. Dutch, Icelandic and Swedish have since been added. The website features publicly accessible forums allowing registered users to ask questions about vocabulary and grammar. It also has monolingual dictionaries with definitions in English, Spanish, Italian and German.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with WordReference.com

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what WordReference.com claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to WordReference.com before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about WordReference.com ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of WordReference.com

In research: WordReference.com appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses WordReference.com in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: WordReference.com is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Language stubs, Online dictionaries, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for WordReference.com outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study WordReference.com in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what WordReference.com means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain WordReference.com out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is WordReference.com in simple terms?

Why does WordReference.com matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study WordReference.com?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on WordReference.com.