There’s a good reason that people have associated dictionaries with vocabulary-building over the years, and why any student of a new language makes a dictionary their first purchase. Actually, there are five good reasons:

1. Definition
You’ll get the meaning of the word, and if it’s a good dictionary, you’ll have all the meanings associated with the word, even the ones that are out of date. For example, the word example can mean several things, including “something to be imitated” and “the representative of a larger group.”

2. Pronunciation
Print dictionaries will show you how a word is pronounced using what’s called IPA, or the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is a set of symbols covering all of the sounds a language makes, and once you can recognize the symbols, you’ll be able to correctly pronounce any word (see here for a full chart). Online dictionaries usually have an audio link you can click to hear the word pronounced correctly. Example is pronounced “ex-AM-pull.”

3. Combination
Often a word will be found in one or more phrases or idioms that are helpful to know. For example, for example, “for example” is one such phrase.

4. Origination
Knowledge of a word’s roots and origin are very useful when you’re trying to learn and memorize words and how to use them correctly. If you look in any dictionary, you’ll see that the basis for the word example is the Latin word eximere, which means “to remove.” If you look this up, you’ll see that the word exempt also comes from this root; to exempt means “to remove, to set aside.” This will help you remember the definition of example as something “set aside” as a representation or as something to be imitated.

5. Correlation
The quickest way to add new words to your vocabulary is to study synonyms and antonyms, and any good dictionary will give you at least one of each (where possible). Some synonyms for example are “illustration” and “prototype.”