Why is the word dictionary in the dictionary?

Question

Why is the word dictionary in the dictionary?

Answer 1

The reason they do that is so, if you ask someone what a word means, then they tell you to look it up  in the dictionary, and if you have never seen one before and if you don't have a clue what it is , you can look up what a dictionary is and then you'll be able to find a dictionary to look up that word that you didn't know.

Answer 2

Even though you are trying to point out something that seems to go against common sense, some reasons that you might look up dictionary

1) to see how to spell it

2) to see how  to pronounce it

3) to learn the etymology (where the word comes from, how it became part of the English language.

Trivia: Some dictionaries put in a 'fake' word every year.