Navigating a monolingual dictionary (Cross-Straits)

[Insectosaurus]

When using the Cross-Straits dictionary, I sometimes run into a wall where I can't seem to find a root word that is not defined by any of the words I'm trying to find out the meaning for. Is this how the dictionary is supposed to work or am I missing something crucial about how it's designed? Take, for example, the word 委婉, which is defined:

 

婉轉含蓄。

 

Clicking 婉轉 gives me:

 

形容話語委婉含蓄。

 

Let's say the only thing I don't understand here is 婉. Then I get:

 

1 〈書〉和順的。

2〈書〉美好的。

3〈書〉委婉。

 

I'm guessing working with the first two definitions would sometimes work and sometimes not, so I can't imagine that's the way I'm supposed to use it. A Learners' Dictionary (like Longman) will generally not use the same character in a definition that is in the word, as long as they have not already defined that character usage in another entry. I do realize most dictionaries are for natives, but I've encountered this problem for words that are quite uncommon, even rare. Fallback to another dictionary is never a problem, I'm just trying to work out if I've misunderstood something about how some Chinese dictionaries are meant to be used. I've never encountered this problem with Japanese, English or Swedish, or at least much more seldom.