Smart Squirrel Reading a Dictionary Postcard

Can you spell "squirrel"? If you want to be as smart as this squirrel and a good speller too, you have to look up words in the dictionary. Here's a fun photograph of a cute squirrel with his hardcover college dictionary open to look up the meaning of a word. Behind our furry rodent friend (whose name is Socrates) is a bookshelf loaded with books. Apparently our squirrel is an avid reader. I happen to know that Socrates loves to read historical romances the best, followed by how-to manuals and plays by Shakespeare. Socrates is a very well-rounded reader to say the least. Can you guess what word Socrates is looking up in his dictionary? By the way, this particular squirrel dreams of being a librarian one day so that he'll never run out of reading material.