Portal:Dictionaries
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Introduction
A dictionary, sometimes known as a wordbook, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, sometimes known as a lexicon. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.
A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.
Selected general articles
A reverse dictionary is a dictionary organized in a non-standard order (usually referring to being in a so-called "reverse" order) that provides the user with information that would be difficult to obtain from a traditionally alphabetized dictionary. There are two principal types of reverse dictionaries: reverse word dictionaries, and reverse concept dictionaries (conceptual dictionary). This article discusses reverse word dictionaries; see conceptual dictionary for reverse concept dictionaries.
Reverse dictionaries were historically difficult to produce before the advent of the electronic computer, but have become more common since 1974, when the first computer sorted reverse dictionary was published: Stahl and Scavnicky's A Reverse Dictionary of the Spanish Language. A form of reverse dictionary is the suffix (word-listing) dictionary. Read more...- Spelling is a linguistic process of phonemic orthography (correct writing) with the necessary letters and diacritics present in a comprehensible order, usually with some degree of standardization; it is "the conventions which determine how the graphemes of a writing system are used to write a language". In other words it is interpretation of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element.
Spellings originated as transcriptions of the sounds of spoken language according to the alphabetic principle. They remain largely reflective of the sounds, although fully phonemic spelling is an ideal that most languages' orthographies only approximate, some more closely than others. This is true for various reasons, including that pronunciation changes over time in all languages, yet spellings as visual norms may resist change. In addition, words from other languages may be adopted without being adapted to the spelling system, and different meanings of a word or homophones may be deliberately spelled in different ways to differentiate them visually. Read more... - A defining vocabulary is a list of words used by lexicographers to write dictionary definitions. The underlying principle goes back to Samuel Johnson's notion that words should be defined using 'terms less abstruse than that which is to be explained', and a defining vocabulary provides the lexicographer with a restricted list of high-frequency words which can be used for producing simple definitions of any word in the dictionary.
Defining vocabularies are especially common in English monolingual learner's dictionaries. The first such dictionary to use a defining vocabulary was the New Method English Dictionary by Michael West and James Endicott (published in 1935), a small dictionary written using a defining vocabulary of just 1,490 words. When the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English was first published in 1978, its most striking feature was its use of a 2,000-word defining vocabulary based on Michael West's General Service List, and since then defining vocabularies have become a standard component of monolingual learner's dictionaries for English and for other languages. Read more... - A biographical dictionary is a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country (with limitations, such as living persons only, in Who's Who, or deceased people only, in the Dictionary of National Biography). Others are specialized, in that they cover important names in a subject field, such as architecture or engineering. Read more...
- An idiom dictionary is a dictionary or phrase book that lists and explains idioms – distinctive words or phrases having a figurative meaning that goes beyond the original semantics of the word(s). For example, the phrase "keep your breath to cool your porridge" is more likely to be a rebuke to mind your own business than literal advice at breakfast. Read more...
A dictionary, sometimes known as a wordbook, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, sometimes known as a lexicon. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.
A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary. Read more...
A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book (simplified Chinese: 韵书; traditional Chinese: 韻書; pinyin: yùnshū) is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the Qieyun (601), which codified correct pronunciations for reading the classics and writing poetry by combining the reading traditions of north and south China. This work became very popular during the Tang dynasty, and went through a series of revisions and expansions, of which the most famous is the Guangyun (1007–1008).
These dictionaries specify the pronunciations of characters using the fǎnqiè method, giving a pair of characters indicating the onset and remainder of the syllable respectively.
The later rime tables gave a significantly more precise and systematic account of the sounds of these dictionaries by tabulating syllables by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones and other properties. The phonological system inferred from these books, often interpreted using the rime tables, is known as Middle Chinese, and has been the key datum for efforts to recover the sounds of early forms of Chinese. It incorporates most of the distinctions found in modern varieties of Chinese, as well as some that are no longer distinguished. It has also been used together with other evidence in the reconstruction of the Old Chinese language (1st millennium BC). Read more...- In general usage, a thesaurus is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning (containing synonyms and sometimes antonyms), in contrast to a dictionary, which provides definitions for words, and generally lists them in alphabetical order. The main purpose of such reference works for users "to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed" – to quote Peter Mark Roget, architect of the best known thesaurus in the English language.
Although including synonyms, a thesaurus should not be taken as a complete list of all the synonyms for a particular word. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Unlike a dictionary, a thesaurus entry does not give the definition of words. Read more...
A bilingual dictionary or translation dictionary is a specialized dictionary used to translate words or phrases from one language to another. Bilingual dictionaries can be unidirectional, meaning that they list the meanings of words of one language in another, or can be bidirectional, allowing translation to and from both languages. Bidirectional bilingual dictionaries usually consist of two sections, each listing words and phrases of one language alphabetically along with their translation. In addition to the translation, a bilingual dictionary usually indicates the part of speech, gender, verb type, declension model and other grammatical clues to help a non-native speaker use the word. Other features sometimes present in bilingual dictionaries are lists of phrases, usage and style guides, verb tables, maps and grammar references. In contrast to the bilingual dictionary, a monolingual dictionary defines words and phrases instead of translating them. Read more...- A specialized dictionary is a dictionary that covers a relatively restricted set of phenomena. The definitive book on the subject (Cowie 2009) includes chapters on (among others) dictionaries of:
- synonyms
- pronunciations
- names (place names and personal names)
- phrases and idioms
- dialect terms
- slang
- quotations
- etymologies
- A language-for-specific-purposes dictionary (LSP dictionary) is a reference work which defines the specialised vocabulary used by experts within a particular field, for example, architecture. The discipline that deals with these dictionaries is specialised lexicography. Medical dictionaries are well-known examples of the type. Read more...
- A sub-field dictionary is a specialized dictionary that has been designed and compiled to cover the terms of one (or possibly more) sub-fields of a particular subject field. It is therefore a sub-division of the class of dictionary called a single-field dictionary. Sub-field dictionaries should be contrasted with multi-field dictionaries and single-field dictionaries.
The typology consisting of these three dictionaries is important for a number of reasons. First of all a sub-field dictionary is an example of a very specialized dictionary in that it covers only a limited part of one single subject field. Examples of sub-field dictionaries are a dictionary of contract law (as opposed to the single-field dictionary of law) and a dictionary of fusion welding (as opposed to a dictionary of welding), or a dictionary of ethical philosophy (as opposed to a dictionary of philosophy). Read more...
An electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media. Electronic dictionaries can be found in several forms, including software installed on tablet or desktop computers, mobile apps, web applications, and as a built-in function of E-readers. They may be free or require payment. Read more...
The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, 1980.
The advanced learner's dictionary is the most common type of monolingual learner's dictionary, that is, a dictionary written for someone who is learning a foreign language and who has a proficiency level of B2 or above according to the Common European Framework. It differs from a bilingual or translation dictionary, on the one hand, and a standard dictionary written for native speakers or linguistic scholars, on the other. The definitions are usually built on defining vocabulary.
Although advanced learner's dictionaries have been produced for learners of several languages (including Chinese, Dutch, German, and Spanish) the majority are written for learners of English. Read more...- Machine-readable dictionary (MRD) is a dictionary stored as machine (computer) data instead of being printed on paper. It is an electronic dictionary and lexical database.
A machine-readable dictionary is a dictionary in an electronic form that can be loaded in a database and can be queried via application software. It may be a single language explanatory dictionary or a multi-language dictionary to support translations between two or more languages or a combination of both. Translation software between multiple languages usually apply bidirectional dictionaries. An MRD may be a dictionary with a proprietary structure that is queried by dedicated software (for example online via internet) or it can be a dictionary that has an open structure and is available for loading in computer databases and thus can be used via various software applications. Conventional dictionaries contain a lemma with various descriptions. A machine-readable dictionary may have additional capabilities and is therefore sometimes called a smart dictionary. An example of a smart dictionary is the Open Source Gellish English dictionary.
The term dictionary is also used to refer to an electronic vocabulary or lexicon as used for example in spelling checkers. If dictionaries are arranged in a subtype-supertype hierarchy of concepts (or terms) then it is called a taxonomy. If it also contains other relations between the concepts, then it is called an ontology. Search engines may use either a vocabulary, a taxonomy or an ontology to optimise the search results. Specialised electronic dictionaries are morphological dictionaries or syntactic dictionaries.
The term MRD is often contrasted with NLP dictionary, in the sense that an MRD is the electronic form of a dictionary which was printed before on paper. Although being both used by programs, in contrast, the term NLP dictionary is preferred when the dictionary was built from scratch with NLP in mind. An ISO standard for MRD and NLP is able to represent both structures and is called Lexical Markup Framework. Read more... - This list contains people who contributed to the field of lexicography, the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. Read more...
- A lexicon, word-hoard, wordbook, or word-stock is the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word "lexicon" derives from the Greek λεξικόν (lexicon), neuter of λεξικός (lexikos) meaning "of or for words."
Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of two parts: a lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock); and a grammar, a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences. The lexicon is also thought to include bound morphemes, which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes). In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions and other collocations are also considered to be part of the lexicon. Dictionaries represent attempts at listing, in alphabetical order, the lexicon of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Read more... - A picture dictionary or pictorial dictionary is a dictionary where the definition of a word is displayed in the form of a drawing or photograph. Picture dictionaries are useful in a variety of teaching environments, such as teaching a young child about their native language, or instructing older students in a foreign language, such as in the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon. Picture dictionaries are often organized by topic instead of being an alphabetic list of words, and almost always include only a small corpus of words.
A similar but distinct concept is the visual dictionary, which is composed of a series of large, labelled images, allowing the user to find the name of a specific component of a larger object. Read more...
A medical dictionary is a lexicon for words utetrology of fellosed in medicine. The three major medical dictionaries in the United States are Stedman's, Taber's, and Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary. Other significant medical dictionaries are distributed by Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of medical and scientific literature, and their French division Masson. Dictionaries often have multiple versions, with content adapted for different user groups. For example Stedman's Concise Medical Dictionary and Dorland's are for general use and allied health care, while the full text editions are reference works used by medical students, doctors, and health professionals.
Many of the dictionaries mentioned above are available online, and other electronic dictionaries for medicine are available as downloadable software packages for Apple Macintosh and Windows computers, PDAs, and smartphones or as CD-ROM, as well as bilingual dictionaries and translation dictionaries. Read more...
Title page from the 1894 four volume version of Robert Hunter's The Encyclopædic Dictionary.
An encyclopedic dictionary typically includes a large number of short listings, arranged alphabetically, and discussing a wide range of topics. Encyclopedic dictionaries can be general, containing articles on topics in many different fields; or they can specialize in a particular field, such as art, biography, law, medicine, or philosophy. They may also be organized around a particular academic, cultural, ethnic, or national perspective.
Historically, the term has been used to refer to any encyclopedic reference book (that is, one comprehensive in scope), which was organized alphabetically, as with the familiar dictionary. (The term dictionary preceded encyclopedia in common usage by about two centuries.) To convey their alphabetic method of organization and to contrast that method with other systems for classifying knowledge, many early encyclopedias were titled or sub-titled "a dictionary of arts and sciences" or something similar. Read more...- A historical dictionary or dictionary on historical principles is a type of dictionary which deals not only with the present-day meanings of words but also the historical development of their forms and meanings. It may also describe the vocabulary of an earlier stage of a language's development without covering present-day usage at all. A historical dictionary is primarily of interest to scholars of language, but may also be used as a general dictionary or by those who are casually interested in understanding a word's development over time. Read more...
- An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.
Etymological dictionaries are the product of research in historical linguistics. For a large number of words in any language, the etymology will be uncertain, disputed, or simply unknown. In such cases, depending on the space available, an etymological dictionary will present various suggestions and perhaps make a judgement on their likelihood, and provide references to a full discussion in specialist literature. Read more...
A phrase book or phrasebook is a collection of ready-made phrases, usually for a foreign language along with a translation, indexed and often in the form of questions and answers. Read more...- An online dictionary is a dictionary that is accessible via the Internet through a web browser. They can be made available in a number of ways: free, free with a paid subscription for extended or more professional content, or a paid-only service. Some online dictionaries are organized as lists of words, similar to a glossary, while others offer search features, reverse lookups, and additional language tools and content such as verb conjugations, grammar references, and discussion forums. Read more...
- A Monolingual learner's dictionary (or MLD) is a type of dictionary designed to meet the reference needs of people learning a foreign language. MLDs are based on the premise that language-learners should progress from a bilingual dictionary to a monolingual one as they become more proficient in their target language, but that general-purpose dictionaries (aimed at native speakers) are inappropriate for their needs. Dictionaries for learners include information on grammar, usage, common errors, collocation, and pragmatics, which is largely missing from standard dictionaries, because native speakers tend to know these aspects of language intuitively. And while the definitions in standard dictionaries are often written in difficult language, those in a monolingual learner’s dictionary aim to be simple and accessible. Read more...
A glossary, also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a book and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with non-fiction books, in some cases, fiction novels may come with a glossary for unfamiliar terms.
A bilingual glossary is a list of terms in one language defined in a second language or glossed by synonyms (or at least near-synonyms) in another language. Read more...- A multi-field dictionary is a specialized dictionary that has been designed and compiled to cover the terms within two or more subject fields. Multi-field dictionaries should be contrasted with single-field dictionaries and sub-field dictionaries.
The typology consisting of these three dictionaries is important for a number of reasons. First of all, a multi-field dictionary is an example of the ordinary technical dictionary, covering a large number of separate subject fields, e.g. banking, economics, finance, insurance and marketing. Read more... - A single-field dictionary is a specialized dictionary that has been designed and compiled to cover the terms of one particular subject field. Single-field dictionaries should be contrasted with multi-field dictionaries and sub-field dictionaries.
The typology consisting of these three dictionaries is important for a number of reasons. First of all a single-field dictionary is an example of a very specialized dictionary in that it covers only one single subject field. Examples of single-field dictionaries are a dictionary of law, a dictionary of economics and a dictionary of welding. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that the Samec'niero, written by Iase Tushi, contains one of the earliest examples of a Georgian–Persian dictionary, and is the earliest Georgian manuscript so far discovered in Iran?
- ... that Narmakosh, compiled by Narmad, is the first monolingual dictionary of the Gujarati language?
- ... that in August 2015, the term "social justice warrior" was one of several new words and phrases added to Oxford Dictionaries?
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Selected images
1612 Vocabolario dell'Accademia della Crusca
The French-language Petit Larousse is an example of an illustrated dictionary.
A multi-volume Latin dictionary by Egidio Forcellini.
Langenscheidt dictionaries
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