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Dictionary: dic·tion·ar·y   (dĭk'shə-nĕr'ē) pronunciation
 
Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary
n., pl. -ies.
  1. A reference book containing an alphabetical list of words, with information given for each word, usually including meaning, pronunciation, and etymology.
  2. A book listing the words of a language with translations into another language.
  3. A book listing words or other linguistic items in a particular category or subject with specialized information about them: a medical dictionary.
  4. Computer Science.
    1. A list of words stored in machine-readable form for reference, as by spelling-checking software.
    2. An electronic spelling checker.

[Medieval Latin dictiōnārium, from Latin dictiō, dictiōn-, diction. See diction.]


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Thesaurus: dictionary
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noun

    An alphabetical list of words often defined or translated: glossary, lexicon, vocabulary, wordbook. See words.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: dictionary
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Reference work that lists words, usually in alphabetical order, and gives their meanings and often other information such as pronunciations, etymologies, and variant spellings. The earliest dictionaries, such as those created by Greeks of the 1st century AD, emphasized changes that had occurred in the meanings of words over time. The close juxtaposition of languages in Europe led to the appearance, from the early Middle Ages on, of many bilingual and multilingual dictionaries. The movement to produce an English dictionary was partly prompted by a desire for wider literacy, so that common people could read Scripture, and partly by a frustration that no regularity in spelling existed in the language. The first purely English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabetical (1604), treating some 3,000 words. In 1746 – 47 Samuel Johnson undertook the most ambitious English dictionary to that time, a list of 43,500 words. Noah Webster's dictionary of Americanisms in the early 19th century sprang from a recognition of the changes and variations within language. The immense Oxford English Dictionary was begun in the late 19th century. Today there are various levels of dictionaries, general-purpose dictionaries being most common. Modern lexicographers (dictionary makers) describe current and past language but rarely prescribe its use.

For more information on dictionary, visit Britannica.com.

 
US History Encyclopedia: Dictionaries
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In the colonial era, Americans used British dictionaries. While dictionaries were published in the colonies during the late eighteenth century, nearly all of them were based on the famous 1755 lexicon compiled by Samuel Johnson in London. Dictionaries of the English language were not widely used until the early nineteenth century, when the expansion of print culture and basic schooling moved the dictionary into countless homes and offices. Dictionaries came in various sizes but most popular was the "school dictionary," a book about as big as a contemporary pocket dictionary. The first dictionary compiled by an American was Samuel Johnson Jr.'s A School Dictionary, published in 1798. The author was no relation to the famed British lexicographer.

The first well-known American dictionary was Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828. Webster is often thought of as a linguistic nationalist, but he was actually more of a linguistic reformer. He argued that English, both in Britain and the United States, should follow "rational" rules. He introduced a system to reform English spelling and make it more uniform. He also devised an elaborate etymological system, based on his own research. This etymology won almost no acceptance at the time and remains universally discredited. Webster's faith in the rational reform of language contradicted the traditional commitment of the Anglo-American lexicography to use dictionaries to record refined usage.

Joseph Worcester, a Boston lexicographer, published a competing dictionary in 1846, three years after Webster died. A new edition of Webster's dictionary appeared the next year, published by the Merriam-Webster Company. These publications set off the "dictionary wars" of the 1840s and 1850s. Educators, editors, literary people, and even politicians all took sides, debating linguistics and hurling insults. Webster's publishers won the war in the 1860s by making their dictionary more conventional. The strange spellings and etymologies disappeared—Webster's dictionary now recorded refined contemporary usage.

Dictionary-making took a new turn after the Civil War (1861–1865). Lexicographers started adding thousands of slang and technical terms to major dictionaries as well as recording the history of words. They began to quote from newspapers as well as literature. Current re-fined usage was no longer the only principle of selection. These lexicographers also started recording national and regional variations of the language. In 1890, the Merriam-Webster Company renamed its flagship text Webster's International Dictionary. These dictionaries became huge, the largest of them becoming multivolume. The most famous of these "encyclopedic" dictionaries was British, the Oxford English Dictionary, edited by James A. H. Murray. Compilation on that dictionary began in the 1860s. An American text, The Century Dictionary of the English Language, edited by the Yale philologist William Dwight Whitney, is unknown today but was a competitor of the Oxford dictionary at the time. Whitney's was the first dictionary in the United States to enthusiastically include slang. Despite some opposition from conservatives opposed to slang and newspaper quotations, the new encyclopedic dictionary quickly became the standard form for the major dictionaries of the English language.

As the comprehensive dictionaries became huge, a new format was needed to accommodate most day-to-day use. In 1898, the Merriam-Webster Company published the first "collegiate" dictionary. Neatly packed into one manageable volume, this became the most popular dictionary of the next century, found as often in the home or office as in a college dorm room. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary dominated the first half of the century; Random House's American College Dictionary, first published in 1947, was most popular in the second half. In the 1990s, 2 million collegiate dictionaries were sold each year. The only other format that rivaled its popularity was the paperback pocket dictionary, introduced in the 1950s.

The 1961 publication of Webster's Third New International Dictionary served as a flash point for new debates about informality and slang. Philip Gove, the editor of the new Webster's, streamlined definitions and tried to eliminate overbearing editorializing. Academics, journalists, and literary people all over the country quickly took sides for or against the book. As during the dictionary war of the 1850s, the debate was intense, with linguistics and invective freely mixing. One particularly charged argument was over Webster's entry for "ain't." Critics claimed that Webster's Third sanctioned its use. Gove countered that the entry reflected the way people really talked. In general, critics argued that the new dictionary abandoned any meaningful effort to distinguish good English from bad English. Dictionaries, defenders argued, were supposed to describe the language, not regulate it.

The early 1960s debate over Webster's Third was really part of a larger discussion about the merits or demerits of progressive education. Controversy about progressive methods of schooling became particularly intense in the years after 1957, when the Soviet Union put a satellite in outer space and took the lead—for the moment—in the space race. There was widespread concern that soft, progressive methods in schools had put the United States behind in the Cold War. Critics of Webster's Third echoed arguments then being made against "progressive" methods of teaching English.

Despite the criticism, Webster's Third was a commercial success. Later in the decade, two other dictionaries appeared that became popular competitors. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1966) and the American Heritage Dictionary (1969) were both conservative alternatives to Webster's. The American Heritage, a collegiate dictionary, was immediately popular and remained so through the end of the century. It created a "usage panel" of 105 leading writers, editors, and professors to give advice about good and bad English. A number of its members had been vocal critics of Webster's Third.

In the 1990s, dictionary makers became preoccupied with going electronic. The Random House Dictionary and Encarta World English Dictionary were the first to become available on CD-ROM. The Oxford English Dictionary started working on an online version in 1994; it became commercially available in 2000, being licensed to libraries for a fee. The electronic emphasis promises to turn future dictionaries into multimedia works, with pronunciations spoken instead of written, routine links to encyclopedia entries, and lexicons updated constantly instead of having a single new edition compiled every generation.

Bibliography

Cmiel, Kenneth. Democratic Eloquence: The Fight Over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: William Morrow, 1990.

Friend, Joseph. The Development of American Lexicography, 1798–1864. The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1967.

Landau, Sidney. Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography. 2d ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

—Kenneth Cmiel

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: dictionary
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dictionary, published list, in alphabetical order, of the words of a language. In monolingual dictionaries the words are explained and defined in the same language; in bilingual dictionaries they are translated into another language. Modern dictionaries usually also provide phonetic transcriptions, hyphenation, synonyms, derived forms, and etymology. However, a dictionary of a living language can never be complete; old words fall into disuse, new words are constantly created, and those surviving frequently change their meanings. The modern dictionary is often prescriptive rather than descriptive, for it attempts to establish certain forms as preferable. The most remarkable case of this sort is the dictionary of the French Academy, which is both widely admired and ignored. The popular American attitude of the 19th cent. toward dictionaries gave them a nearly sacred authority, but in the 20th cent. the dictionary makers themselves began to replace notions of purity (especially based on etymology) by criteria of use, somewhat ahead of analogous developments in grammar. Because of the unprecedented scientific advances of the 20th cent., many scientific terms have come into popular use and consequently have increased the size of general dictionaries.

Early English Dictionaries

Lexicography is an ancient occupation; dictionaries of many sorts were produced in China, Greece, Islam, and other complex early cultures. The 13th-century Dictionarius of John of Garland is the first recorded use of the term to mean word list. Nathan Bailey (d. 1742) was the author of three English dictionaries so much more comprehensive and consistent than any of their predecessors as rightly to be considered the first examples of modern lexicography. His Universal Etymological English Dictionary was published in 1721; his larger dictionary, Dictionarium Britannicum, was published in 1730. An interleaved copy of this larger work was used by Samuel Johnson in preparing the two-volume Dictionary of the English Language, which appeared in 1755. Johnson's definitions evince his scholarship, humor, judgment, and skill and are basic to later lexicography. William Kenrick, who published a dictionary in 1773, was first to indicate pronunciation with diacritical marks (see accent) and to divide words according to their syllables. The dictionary of Thomas Sheridan (1721–88), an actor, was published in 1780, and the dictionary of John Walker (1732–1807), also an actor, in 1791. In both these dictionaries special care was given to pronunciation, as to which, for many years, Walker's authority received more deference than it merited.

The American Dictionaries of Webster and Others

The next great lexicographer after Samuel Johnson was an American, Noah Webster (1758–1843). The first edition of the book later known as Webster's Spelling Book appeared in 1783. For years the annual sales of this book were more than a million copies. To help those who had mastered the Spelling Book to continue their education, Webster published (1806) his Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, with concern for “what the English language is, and not, how it might have been made.” His larger dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, in two volumes, was published in 1828. Authorized publishers have issued a series of skillful revisions and abridgments that have retained for Webster's dictionaries their popularity. The largest of Webster's dictionaries, called “the Unabridged,” appeared as the 5th edition (1846) and included linguistic material that set it apart from previous Webster's dictionaries and made it outstanding. Continually revised, it is currently published in one volume.

Another notable one-volume American dictionary was that by Joseph Emerson Worcester (1784–1865), first published in 1830; an edition revised by the author appeared in 1860 and was the first to employ a group of expert consultants, use illustrations, and indicate synonyms in the text. A later one-volume American dictionary was the Funk and Wagnalls Standard, completed in 1895. This dictionary listed definitions according to current rather than historical frequency of usage, an innovation that was generally adopted. The Century Dictionary, an American dictionary in six volumes, with encyclopedic features, was completed in 1891. Supplementary volumes were The Century Cyclopedia of Names (1894) and The Century Atlas of the World (1897).

Illustrative Examples and the Oxford Dictionaries

In England, progress in lexicography since Walker's time has been notably in the collection and organization of examples of usage. In 1836–37, Charles Richardson (1775–1865) published, in two volumes, a dictionary richer in illustrative examples than any of its predecessors. In 1857 the Philological Society began collecting dated examples of usage. This work of the Philological Society made possible the publication of the dictionary variously known as the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and Murray's Dictionary (for Sir James A. H. Murray, 1837–1915, one of the editors). Publication of this dictionary began in 1884 and was completed in 1928, 70 years after the collecting of the material began. The 12 volumes and supplement of this monumental and unrivaled lexicon described the history of some 250,000 English words, incorporating more than 2 million citations of usage in the process of defining a total of nearly 415,000 words. A 20-volume second edition, published in 1989, incorporates the four-volume supplement and contains over 616,000 words. Two major shorter editions are published: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (5th ed. 1964) and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (rev. ed. 1993). A much less ambitious but notable project is the four-volume Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles, edited by Sir William Alexander Craigie. It was completed in 1943.

Notable Recent Dictionaries

Recent advances in lexicography have been made by the frequently revised collegiate or desk dictionary, an up-to-date abridgment of a large, comprehensive work. The Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed. 1993) is based on Webster's Third New International Dictionary, published in 1961; it has many notable competitors. Also notable are several modern American dictionaries of intermediate size, including the Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2d ed. 1987) and the well-illustrated American Heritage Dictionary (3d ed. 1992).

In the early 1990s computer technology made possible the release of dictionaries on floppy disks or CD-ROM, e.g., the electronic edition of The Random House Unabridged Dictionary (1993). Electronic dictionaries also became available as part of multivolume reference-book packages, such as Microsoft's Bookshelf CD-ROM, and as a feature of on-line services. Computer technology provided new ways to search for and link words and new ways to illustrate them, e.g., prerecorded pronunciations that users can play back. By the end of the 1990s many dictionaries were available in various print and electronic editions; the new Encarta World English Dictionary (1999) was released both as a printed book and a CD-ROM.

Bibliography

See J. Green, Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made (1997).

 
Devil's Dictionary: dictionary
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Home > Library > Literature & Language > Devil's Dictionary
A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce


n.

A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

 
Word Tutor: dictionary
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Home > Library > Literature & Language > Spelling & Usage
pronunciation

IN BRIEF: A reference book giving information about the meanings, forms, pronunciations, and so on of words listed in alphabetical order.

pronunciation She kept a dictionary by her side while she wrote her term paper.

 
Quotes About: Dictionaries
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Quotes:

"Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words." - Samuel Johnson

"Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few." - Samuel Johnson

"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true." - Samuel Johnson

"Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time)." - Ernest Hemingway

"At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 
Wikipedia: Dictionary
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For other uses, see Dictionary (disambiguation).
For Wikimedia's dictionary project visit Wiktionary, or see the Wiktionary article.
 This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (July 2007)

A dictionary is a collection of words in a specific language, often listed alphabetically, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information;[1] or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon.[1] According to Nielsen 2008 a dictionary may be regarded as a lexicographical product that is characterised by three significant features: (1) it has been prepared for one or more functions; (2) it contains data that have been selected for the purpose of fulfilling those functions; and (3) its lexicographic structures link and establish relationships between the data so that they can meet the needs of users and fulfil the functions of the dictionary.

In many languages, words can appear in many different forms, but only the undeclined or unconjugated form appears as the headword in most dictionaries. Dictionaries are most commonly found in the form of a book, but some newer dictionaries, like StarDict and the New Oxford American Dictionary are dictionary software running on PDAs or computers. There are also many online dictionaries accessible via the Internet.

A multi-volume Latin dictionary in the University Library of Graz.

Contents

History

The oldest known dictionaries were Akkadian empire cuneiform tablets with bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian wordlists, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria) and dated roughly 2300 BCE.[2] The early 2nd millennium BCE Urra=hubullu glossary is the canonical Babylonian version of such bilingual Sumerian wordlists. A Chinese dictionary, the ca. 3rd century BCE Erya, was the earliest surviving monolingual dictionary, although some sources cite the ca. 800 BCE Shizhoupian as a "dictionary", modern scholarship considers it a calligraphic compendium of Chinese characters from Zhou dynasty bronzes. Philitas of Cos (fl. 4th century BCE) wrote a pioneering vocabulary Disorderly Words (Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι, Átaktoi glôssai) which explained the meanings of rare Homeric and other literary words, words from local dialects, and technical terms.[3] Apollonius the Sophist (fl. 1st century CE) wrote the oldest surviving Homeric lexicon.[2] The first Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa, was written by Amara Sinha ca. 4th century CE. Written in verse, it listed around 10,000 words. According to the Nihon Shoki, the first Japanese dictionary was the long-lost 682 CE Niina glossary of Chinese characters. The oldest existing Japanese dictionary, the ca. 835 CE Tenrei Banshō Meigi, was also a glossary of written Chinese.

Arabic dictionaries were compiled between the 8th and 14th centuries CE, organizing words in rhyme order (by the last syllable), by alphabetical order of the radicals, or according to the alphabetical order of the first letter (the system used in modern European language dictionaries). The modern system was mainly used in specialist dictionaries, such as those of terms from the Qur'an and hadith, while most general use dictionaries, such as the Lisan al-`Arab (13th c., still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) and al-Qamus al-Muhit (14th c.) listed words in the alphabetical order of the radicals. The Qamus al-Muhit is the first handy dictionary in Arabic, which includes only words and their definitions, eliminating the supporting examples used in such dictionaries as the Lisan and the Oxford English Dictionary.[4]

The earliest modern European dictionaries were bilingual dictionaries. The earliest in the English language were glossaries of French, Italian or Latin words along with definitions of the foreign words in English. An early non-alphabetical list of 8000 English words was the Elementarie created by Richard Mulcaster in 1592.[5][6]

The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604. The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Yet this early effort, as well as the many imitators which followed it, was seen as unreliable and nowhere near definitive. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield was still lamenting in 1754, 150 years after Cawdrey's publication, that it is "a sort of disgrace to our nation, that hitherto we have had no… standard of our language; our dictionaries at present being more properly what our neighbors the Dutch and the Germans call theirs, word-books, than dictionaries in the superior sense of that title." [7] It was not until Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) that a truly noteworthy, reliable English Dictionary was deemed to have been produced, and the fact that today many people still mistakenly believe Johnson to have written the first English Dictionary is a testament to this legacy.[8] By this stage, dictionaries had evolved to contain textual references for most words, and were arranged alphabetically, rather than by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement, which meant all animals would be grouped together, etc.). Johnson's masterwork could be judged as the first to bring all these elements together, creating the first 'modern' dictionary.[8]

Johnson's Dictionary remained the English-language standard for over 150 years, until the Oxford University Press began writing and releasing the Oxford English Dictionary in short fascicles from 1884 onwards. It took nearly 50 years to finally complete the huge work, and they finally released the complete OED in twelve volumes in 1928. It remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day, with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months. One of the main contributors to this modern day dictionary was an ex-army surgeon, William Chester Minor, a convicted murderer who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane.[9]

Specialized dictionaries

According to the Manual of Specialized Lexicographies a specialized dictionary (also referred to as a technical dictionary) is a lexicon that focuses upon a specific subject field. Following the description in The Bilingual LSP Dictionary lexicographers categorize specialized dictionaries into three types. A multi-field dictionary broadly covers several subject fields (e.g., a business dictionary), a single-field dictionary narrowly covers one particular subject field (e.g., law), and a sub-field dictionary covers a singular field (e.g., constitutional law). For example, the 23-language Inter-Active Terminology for Europe is a multi-field dictionary, the American National Biography is a single-field, and the African American National Biography Project is a sub-field dictionary. In terms of the above coverage distinction between "minimizing dictionaries" and "maximizing dictionaries", multi-field dictionaries tend to minimize coverage across subject fields (for instance, Oxford Dictionary of World Religions) whereas single-field and sub-field dictionaries tend to maximize coverage within a limited subject field (The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology). See also LSP dictionary.

Glossaries

Another variant is the glossary, an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialised field, such as medicine or science. The simplest dictionary, a defining dictionary, provides a core glossary of the simplest meanings of the simplest concepts. From these, other concepts can be explained and defined, in particular for those who are first learning a language. In English, the commercial defining dictionaries typically include only one or two meanings of under 2000 words. With these, the rest of English, and even the 4000 most common English idioms and metaphors, can be defined.

Pronunciation

Main articles: IPA chart for English and Pronunciation respelling for English

Dictionaries for languages for which the pronunciation of words is not apparent from their spelling, such as the English language, usually provide the pronunciation, often using the International Phonetic Alphabet. For example, the definition for the word dictionary might be followed by the (American English) phonemic spelling: /ˈdɪkʃəˌnɛri/. American dictionaries, however, often use their own pronunciation spelling systems, for example dictionary [dĭkʹshə-nârʹē] while the IPA is more commonly used within the British Commonwealth countries. Yet others use an ad hoc notation; for example, dictionary may become [DIK-shuh-nair-ee]. Some on-line or electronic dictionaries provide recordings of words being spoken.

This section requires expansion.

Variations between dictionaries

Prescription and description

Lexicographers apply two basic philosophies to the defining of words: prescriptive or descriptive. Noah Webster, intent on forging a distinct identity for the American language, altered spellings and accentuated differences in meaning and pronunciation of some words. This is why American English now uses the spelling color while the rest of the English-speaking world prefers colour. (Similarly, British English subsequently underwent a few spelling changes that did not affect American English; see further at American and British English spelling differences.) Large 20th-century dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Webster's Third are descriptive, and attempt to describe the actual use of words.

A dictionary open at the word "Internet", viewed through a lens

While descriptivists argue that prescriptivism is an unnatural attempt to dictate usage or curtail change, prescriptivists argue that to indiscriminately document "improper" or "inferior" usages sanctions those usages by default and causes language to "deteriorate". Although the debate can become very heated, only a small number of controversial words are usually affected. But the softening of usage notations, from the previous edition, for two words, ain't and irregardless, out of over 450,000 in Webster's Third in 1961, was enough to provoke outrage among many with prescriptivist leanings, who branded the dictionary as "permissive."

The prescriptive/descriptive issue has been given so much consideration in modern times that most dictionaries of English apply the descriptive method to definitions, while additionally informing readers of attitudes which may influence their choices on words often considered vulgar, offensive, erroneous, or easily confused. Merriam-Webster is subtle, only adding italicized notations such as, sometimes offensive or nonstand (nonstandard.) American Heritage goes further, discussing issues separately in numerous "usage notes." Encarta provides similar notes, but is more prescriptive, offering warnings and admonitions against the use of certain words considered by many to be offensive or illiterate, such as, "an offensive term for..." or "a taboo term meaning..."

Because of the broad use of dictionaries, and their acceptance by many as language authorities, their treatment of the language does affect usage to some degree, even the most descriptive dictionaries providing conservative continuity. In the long run, however, usage primarily determines the meanings of words in English, and the language is being changed and created every day. As Jorge Luis Borges says in the prologue to "El otro, el mismo": "It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."

Science Dictionary

Science Dictionaries have existed from the 6th century BCE when the Chinese started organizing all of their scientifically important knowledge, and combining them into scrolls. The amount and type of information ranged from theories, species, experiments, essays, research, and various other forms of knowledge. However it wasn't until the first century BCE when they started organizing each and every scroll to form a dictionary of scientific knowledge. The dictionaries were ordered from "most important" to "least important" by Chinese standards, and reached up to 8,000 entries long. Some versions have been found where the dragon (one of the most ancient and powerful creatures of Chinese legend) was the first entry[10] in the science dictionaries. However, that since the notion of searching up entries one by one based on importance, was too much of a confusion (also because, the Chinese scientists couldn't agree upon a good definition for each article) they abandoned the task, and it had never gained momentum to be a worldwide success.

[11]

Major English dictionaries

For languages other than modern English, see the article about that language. See also articles such as Japanese dictionaries.

Others

See also

Sister project Look up dictionary in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ^ a b Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2002
  2. ^ a b Dictionary - MSN Encarta
  3. ^ Peter Bing (2003). "The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet". Classical Philology 98 (4): 330–48. doi:10.1086/422370. 
  4. ^ "Ḳāmūs," J. Eckmann, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Brill
  5. ^ 1582 - Mulcaster's Elementarie, Learning Dictionaries and Meaning, The British Library
  6. ^ A Brief History of English Lexicography, Peter Erdmann and See-Young Cho, Technische Universität Berlin, 1999.
  7. ^ Jack Lynch, “How Johnson's Dictionary Became the First Dictionary” (delivered 25 August 2005 at the Johnson and the English Language conference, Birmingham) Retrieved July 12, 2008
  8. ^ a b Lynch, "How Johnson's Dictionary Became the First Dictionary"
  9. ^ Simon Winchester, author of The Surgeon of Crowthorne.
  10. ^ Science Bucket Science Bucket
  11. ^ The Science Dictionary Science Dictionary

Relevant literature

  • Bergenholtz, Henning & Tarp, Sven (eds.) (1955) Manual of Specialised Lexicography, Benjamins Publishing Co.
  • "A Brief History of English Lexicography". http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/b_history.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-22. 
  • Landau, Sidney I. (1998) Dictionaries, The Art and Craft of Lexicography, Simon & Schuster, hardcover, ISBN 0-684-18096-0.
  • Nielsen, Sandro (1994) The Bilingual LSP Dictionary, Gunter Narr Verlag.
  • Nielsen, Sandro (2008) "The effect of lexicographical information costs on dictionary making and use", Lexikos 18, 170-189.
  • Winchester, Simon (1998) The Professor and the Madman. A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, HarperPerennial, New York, trade paperback, ISBN 0-06-017596-6 (published in the UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne).

External links

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Lexicography
Types of reference works
Dictionary · Glossary · Lexicon · Thesaurus
Types of dictionaries
Vocabulary topics
Lexicographic topics
Lexicographic projects
Other

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
Translations: Dictionary
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - ordbog, leksikon, håndbog

Nederlands (Dutch)
woordenboek, lexicon

Français (French)
n. - dictionnaire

Deutsch (German)
n. - Wörterbuch

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - λεξικό

Italiano (Italian)
dizionario

idioms:

  • electronic dictionary    dizionario elettronico

Português (Portuguese)
n. - dicionário (m)

idioms:

  • electronic dictionary    dicionário (m) eletrônico

Русский (Russian)
словарь

idioms:

  • electronic dictionary    электронный словарь

Español (Spanish)
n. - diccionario

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - ordbok, lexikon

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
字典, 词典

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 字典, 詞典

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 사전

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 辞書, 辞典

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) قاموس, , معجم‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מילון‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.


 
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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Devil's Dictionary. Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911  Read more
Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved.
eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial.  Read more
Quotes About. Copyright © 2005 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dictionary".  Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

 

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