The index is not a second dictionary from English to Tausug. It is rather a list of English words and phrases cross-referenced to lexical items and their senses in Tausug. It has two main purposes. First, it aims to help a learner of Tausug find lexical items in the main body of the dictionary. The learner, with a semantic concept in mind, looks up the English word for that concept in the index to find a Tausug lexical item which expresses the same concept. When he looks up the Tausug lexical item in the dictionary he finds the English gloss, which explains its meaning further and illustrative sentences which show how it is used. The second purpose of the index is to aid a speaker of Tausug who wants a Tausug gloss of an English word.
No attempt has been made to put full English glosses in the index. To illustrate, the Tausug word hanig is not a definition of the English "pot holder" but rather a related word. The entry hanig in the main body tells the user that the word hanig actually means anything used for covering a surface.
This index is not exhaustive, i.e., it does not include every part of speech of a given English concept. For example, the index includes the entry "blameless" with the Tausug atay puti', which is glossed as "blameless" in the main body. But the index does not include "blameless, to be" and "blamelessness," both of which are also glosses of atay puti'. When the user looks up atay puti' in the main body he will find that it is used as a verb and a noun as well as an adjective.
Some generic English words do not have a long list of Tausug words opposite them. Rather they are cross-referenced to a table in the main body or an appendix. The word "number" for example, is followed by "(see table)" and the Tausug word umbul. This informs the user that a table of Tausug numbers is found at the entry umbul. Similarly, the word "fish" is followed by "(see Appendix 2)." This appendix lists many Tausug names of fishes.
As in the main body, subscripts after Tausug words denote homophones and boldfaced numbers, not subscripted, indicate sense numbers. For instance "accordion" is the gloss for the third sense of ambak1. The notation S after a Tausug word or phrase means that the English word or phrase is a gloss of a subentry under that particular Tausug entry in the main body. For example, opposite "blacksmith" appears the Tausug panday S. The user will find under panday the subentry panday basi', which is glossed "blacksmith."