[填空题]Let us see how dictionaries are made and how editors arrive at definitions. The task of writing a dictionary begins with the reading of vast amounts of the
(36) of the period or the subject that the dictionary is to cover. As editors read, they copy on cards every interesting or rare word, every unusual or
(37) occurrence of a common word, a large number of common words in their ordinary uses, and also the sentences in which each of these words appears, thus:
Pail
The daily pails bring home increase of milk.
Keats, Endymion
The
(38) of each word is collected, along with the word itself. For a really big job of dictionary writing, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, millions of such cards are collected, and the task of editing
(39) decades. As the cards are collected, they are alphabetized and
(40) . When the sorting is completed, there will be for each word anywhere from two o