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A 'vocabulary' is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language.
The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing new sentences. So "curse" is a regular part of the vocabulary of native English speakers but "imprecate" is not, even though the two words are synonyms. The richness of a person's vocabulary is popularly thought to be a reflection of intelligence or level of education. Accordingly, many standardised tests, such as the SAT, have questions that test vocabulary.
Increasing the size of one's vocabulary, also called ''vocabulary building,'' is generally considered to be an important part of both learning a language and improving one's skills in a language in which one is already proficient. Hence schoolchildren are often taught new words as a part of a particular unit or lesson. Similarly, many adults find vocabulary building to be a fun and educational activity, as evidenced in the popularity of "word-a-day" services such as mailing lists and desktop calendars.
The word "vocabulary" is also used figuratively for qualities or techniques distinctive to a particular style, especially an architectural style.
Many teachers help students expand their vocabulary by assigning packets to be done weekly.

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Access time

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Access time

According to Jean Aitchison, the time to recognise a word may be less than 200 ms after onset; in many cases the word is already recognised before it has even ended. (Shadowing and lexical decision tasks were used to determine this number.)
Brain research has found that the brain is managing vocabulary through ''mental orthographic images'' (MOI), a database of visual imprints of words learned. Since the brain has the ability to quickly jump to conclusions as it hears words, it is to be expected that a similar database is storing sound impressions of words as well.
''Mental orthographic images'' enable the mind to quickly skip through text, absorbing its content without actually deciphering words letter by letter. It seems that the educated mind makes writing decisions based on what "looks right" and reading decisions based on what "looks like", allowing for rapid processing.

See also

★ Glossary

★ Grammar

★ Idiom

★ Jargon

★ Latin verbs with English derivatives

★ Latin nouns with English derivatives

★ Lexicon

★ Part of speech

★ Register (linguistics)

★ Slang

★ Technical terminology

★ Term

★ Terminology

External Links

★ Calculate an estimate of the size of your vocabulary!

★ Vocabulary resource for SAT preparation