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Bruce","","Explains how to interpret Urdu dictionary entries by walking through example entries from major English-Urdu and monolingual Urdu lexicographical works. Focuses on identifying the etymology letter at the start of an entry, reading the Urdu spelling and pronunciation, understanding grammatical markers such as infinitive noun forms and masculine gender, and extracting English-equivalent meanings and parts of speech. Compares an entry by John T. Platts with a parallel entry from Sayyid Aḥmad Dihlavī’s Farhang-e ṣafiyah to show how information is presented across dictionaries.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/how-to-use-an-urdu-dictionary-gregory-m-bruce/489596/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/how-to-use-an-urdu-dictionary-gregory-m-bruce/489596.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"A glass of water","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-19","2026-10-01",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":24},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What is the main purpose of the lesson about an Urdu dictionary?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It teaches how to interpret a dictionary entry by analyzing components such as etymology indicators, pronunciation, grammatical notes, and meaning lists.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How do entries in Platts’ dictionary indicate the origin of the headword?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Entries begin with a letter or letters that show etymological origin; for example, “A” indicates borrowing from Arabic.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the lesson highlight when comparing Platts with Farhang-e ṣafiyah?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It shows that Sayyid Aḥmad’s entry provides similar information—such as etymological indications and grammatical structure—and often follows a comparable punctuation style.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},489596,1791536835,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":24,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":39,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},962090760832,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","How to Use an Urdu Dictionary  \nby Gregory M. Bruce  \nBy most accounts, Urdu dictionaries first appeared in the form of short, bilingual versified glossaries for young learners during the time of the Delhi sultanate (13th–16th c. CE). During the Mughal period, Urdu vocabulary increasingly found inclusion in Persian dictionaries compiled in India. European colonialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced explosion of interest among Orientalists in Urdu and other Indian languages, and the centuries witnessed an unprecedented number of bilingual dictionaries, including Urdu-English ones. In the present lesson, we’ll look at an entry in one such dictionary, John T. Platts’A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (1884), commonly called “Platts.” With the ascent of Urdu as a language of governance under colonialism, the period also witnessed the compilation of the first extensive monolingual dictionaries in Urdu. We’ll look at an entry in the first complete monolingual Urdu dictionary, Farhang-e ṣafiyah (1898–1908), which is still widely used and admired today. By all accounts the most comprehensive and detailed dictionary of Urdu is Urdu Lughat. Modeled on the Oxford English Dictionary, Urdu Lughat has been in production for the better part of five decades in Pakistan. The final volume of the dictionary was printed several years ago. Recently, the entire project has been digitized and put online. In what follows, we’ll closely study at an entry found in the online version.  \nOne major shortcoming in most Urdu dictionaries is that they primarily contain lists of synonyms or single-word glosses, not specific definitions.  \nJohn T. Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (1884)  \nThe dictionary by John T. Platts is arguably the most comprehensive and authoritative English-Urdu dictionary compiled to date. When it comes to Urdu word usage prior to the twentieth century, no English-Urdu dictionary can compete with it. It is old and in some respects outdated, of course. But remains the primary resource for serious students of Urdu who work between the two languages.  \nHere is Platts’entry for the word ﻋدل .  \nA ﻋدل ʻadl (inf. n. of ﻋدل 'to act equitably,' &c.), s.m. Equity, justice, rectitude:—ʻadl karnā, v.n. To do justice, to act equitably, to decide according to equity and rectitude; to judge (between), to decide:—ʻadl-gustarī, s.f. The dispensing, or the administration, of justice.  \n􀀡is resource is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. [Visit](Visit urdu.la.utexas.edu for more resources)[ ](Visit urdu.la.utexas.edu for more resources)[urdu.la.utexas.edu](Visit urdu.la.utexas.edu for more resources)[ for more resources](Visit urdu.la.utexas.edu for more resources).  \nHow to Use an Urdu Dictionary by Gregory M. Bruce  \nAs you can see, the entry contains a wealth of information about the word. Let’s dissect it to understand what we can learn from it. First, the letter that appears at the beginning of it:  \nA  \nEntries in Platts’dictionary begin with a letter or letters that identify the etymological origins of entry words. In the present entry,“A” indicates that our word is borrowed from Arabic. An “E,”“P,” or “S,”would indicate English, Persian, or Sanskrit, respectively. Next, the entry word:  \nﻋدل ʻadl  \nHere we are given the Urdu spelling and a standard pronunciation. Sometimes, Platts also notes colloquial [which it calls vulgar (vulg.)] pronunciations. (In the late-19th century, the word “vulgar”had not quite lost its less-offensive sense,“of the people; of the masses.”)  \n(inf. n. of ﻋدل 'to act equitably,' &c.), s.m.–  \nNext we are given etymological information about the word in parentheses. Here, we are told that this is an infinitive noun (that is, a verbal noun) from the verb ﻋدل , which is then glossed. We also learn the number and gender of the word (singular and masculine or s.m. for short) .  \nEquity, justice, rectitude:—  \nNext we are given English s","cbCaidvtPDCWdpH1","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidvtPDCWdpH1","pdf",342516,"English","# How to Use an Urdu Dictionary\n## Dictionary history and chosen references\n## Structure of Platts’ dictionary entry\n## Reading etymology markers and grammatical information\n## Using examples and comparing with Farhang-e ṣafiyah","[{\"question\":\"What is the main purpose of the lesson about an Urdu dictionary?\",\"answer\":\"It teaches how to interpret a dictionary entry by analyzing components such as etymology indicators, pronunciation, grammatical notes, and meaning lists.\"},{\"question\":\"How do entries in Platts’ dictionary indicate the origin of the headword?\",\"answer\":\"Entries begin with a letter or letters that show etymological origin; for example, “A” indicates borrowing from Arabic.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the lesson highlight when comparing Platts with Farhang-e ṣafiyah?\",\"answer\":\"It shows that Sayyid Aḥmad’s entry provides similar information—such as etymological indications and grammatical structure—and often follows a comparable punctuation style.\"}]","How to Use an Urdu Dictionary - Gregory M. Bruce | PDF",1790825284,12]