7. Using the Pali-English Dictionary (PED).

Take a quick look through the front matter; particularly note the abbreviations for “General and grammatical terms” on pp. xii-xiii. When the gender of a noun is not given as feminine (f.) or neuter (nt.), it is masculine. When within a word an n precedes a k or a g, that has to be a guttural letter, which is usually written ṅ. Unfortunately, the PED prints it like a dental n with no diacritic. Though this does not produce any ambiguity, it can confuse beginners. Like many other books, the PED prints a circumflex (^) over a long vowel when that vowel results from sandhi, i.e., the merging of 2 vowels (of any length). The dictionary often gives more help than you might expect. For example, many compounds are listed under the first member, even though the second member has its own entry. On the other hand, when a nominal stem is prefixed by the negative prefix – a- before consonants, an- before vowels – it rarely has a separate entry. For example, iṭṭha “pleasant”: there is no separate entry under aniṭṭha “unpleasant”, though aniṭṭha is specifically mentioned in the entry for iṭṭha. The same goes for the prefixes su- “well” and du- “bad(ly)”; du- will always double the following consonant and is dur- before vowels. Thus kata “done”, sukata “well done, good deed”, dukkata “bad deed”. (In this word the t may be cerebral: kaṭa.) A similar pair of prefixes is sa- “with” and nir- “without”; nir-/ni- behaves exactly like du- (see previous paragraph). Thus mala “stain”, samala “stained”, nimmala “stainless”; ākāra “mode, attribute”, sākāra (sa + ākāra) “with attributes”, nirākāra “without attributes”. The PED is not consistent in how much help it gives with such words.

Just occasionally, a compound is listed in what seems out of alphabetical order, because its alphabetical place is determined by what it would be if the compound were resolved. Thus yathābhirantaṃ comes from yathā+abhirantaṃ “as much as one likes”, and is placed accordingly (p.549 column a near the top). Nominal stems ending in the suffixes –t and –tta, which merely create abstract nouns, are rarely listed. So you will not find, and would not expect, a separate entry for iṭṭhatā, “being pleasant, pleasantness”. Remember that verbs are listed under the third person singular of the present indicative. Some past passive participles, and a few other forms which are hard to recognise, are listed; {but aorist forms beginning with the augment a- rarely are. Thus you have to work out for yourself that abhāsi comes from bhāsati.}