Style the headword in your works-cited-list entry as you would style a headword in the Latin alphabet: enclose the term, and an italic abbreviation indicating the relevant part of speech supplied by the dictionary, in quotation marks.

The MLA Handbook offers guidance on the inclusion or omission of translations and transliterations in your works-cited list. Alphabetizing works in non-Latin alphabets by their transliteration helps readers locate those sources in your works-cited list (133–34). For example, an essay citing definitions of the term מאַ’מע־לשון (mame-loshn; “mother tongue”) in a Yiddish dictionary and an English dictionary would alphabetize the entries as follows: 

“מאַ’מע־לשון [Mame-loshn], N.” Yiddish Dictionary, Indiana UP, 2013, verterbukh.org/vb?yq=mame-loshn&dir=from&tsu=en&trns= &trns=t.

“Mother Tongue, N.” Merriam Webster Unabridged, 2021, unabridged.merriam-webster.com/collegiate/mother%20tongue. 

For more guidance on citing dictionary entries, see the examples on the MLA Style Center and in appendix 2 of the MLA Handbook (328).

Works Cited

MLA Handbook. 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.