What is a dictionary in Python?

A dictionary in Python is defined as a collection of key-value pairs. This means that each entry in a dictionary consists of a unique key that maps to a specific value. This structure allows for efficient lookup, addition, and deletion of entries, as keys are utilized to access their corresponding values easily.

Dictionaries are unordered, meaning that the items do not have a defined order, and they are mutable, which allows for changes to be made after their creation. Python dictionaries are defined using curly braces {}, with each key-value pair separated by a colon. For example, {"name": "Alice", "age": 30} is a dictionary where "name" is a key that maps to the value "Alice," and "age" is a key that maps to the value 30.

The other options represent different data structures or concepts in Python. Lists are ordered collections of items which may include numbers, but they do not provide key-value pair associations. A sequence of characters refers to strings, which are not structured as key-value pairs. Loops are constructs for repeated execution of code blocks and are not a data structure at all. Hence, the understanding that a dictionary is a collection of key-value pairs is crucial for utilizing this versatile data