For other uses see Dictionary (disambiguation). For Wikimedia's dictionary project visit Wiktionary or see the Wiktionary article. A multi-volume Latin dictionary by Egidio Forcellini.

A dictionary also called a lexicon wordbook or vocabulary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages often listed alphabetically with usage information definitions etymologies phonetics 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 fulfill the functions of the dictionary.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries do not contain information about words that are used in language for general purposeswords used by ordinary people in everyday situations. 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 meaning 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.2 There are other types of dictionaries that don't fit neatly in the above distinction for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri) or rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a monolingual general-purpose dictionary.3

A different dimension on which dictionaries (usually just general-purpose ones) are sometimes distinguished is whether they are prescriptive or descriptive the latter being in theory largely based on linguistic corpus studiesthis is the case of most modern dictionaries. However this distinction cannot be upheld in the strictest sense. The choice of headwords is considered itself of prescriptive nature; for instance dictionaries avoid having too many taboo words in that position. Stylistic indications (e.g. informal or vulgar) present in many modern dictionaries is considered less than objectively descriptive as well.4

Although the first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times (these were bilingual dictionaries) the systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest themselves is a 20th century enterprise called lexicography and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta.3 The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused of "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.5 Contents 1 History 1.1 Noah Webster 2 General dictionaries 3 Specialized dictionaries 4 Glossaries 5 Pronunciation 6 Variations between dictionaries 6.1 Prescription and description 7 Major English dictionaries 7.1 Others 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links History

The oldest known dictionaries were Akkadian empire cuneiform tablets with bilingual SumerianAkkadian wordlists discovered in Ebla (modern Syria) and dated roughly 2300 BCE.6 The early 2nd millennium BCE Urrahubullu 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 ( taktoi glssai) which explained the meanings of rare Homeric and other literary words words from local dialects and technical terms.7 Apollonius the Sophist (fl. 1st century CE) wrote the oldest surviving Homeric lexicon.6 The first Sanskrit dictionary the Amarakoa was written by Amara Sinha ca. 4th century CE. Written in verse it listed around 10000 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 Bansh 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.8

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 1592.910

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." 11 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 testimony to this legacy.12 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.12

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.13 Noah Webster In 1806 American Noah Webster published his first dictionary A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary An American Dictionary of the English Language; it took twenty-seven years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words Webster learned twenty-six languages including Old English (Anglo-Saxon) German Greek Latin Italian Spanish French Hebrew Arabic and Sanskrit. Webster hoped to standardize American speech since Americans in different parts of the country used different languages. They also spelled pronounced and used English words differently. Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris France and at the University of Cambridge. His book contained seventy thousand words of which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex so his dictionary introduced American English spellings replacing "colour" with "color" substituting "wagon" for "waggon" and printing "center" instead of "centre". He also added American words like "skunk" and "squash" that did not appear in British dictionaries. At the age of seventy Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840 the second edition was published in two volumes. Austin (2005) explores the intersection of lexicographical and poetic practices in American literature and attempts to map out a "lexical poetics" using Webster's definitions as his base. He explores how American poets used Webster's dictionaries often drawing upon his lexicography in order to express their word play. Austin explicates key definitions from both the Compendious (1806) and American (1828) dictionaries and brings into its discourse a range of concerns including the politics of American English the question of national identity and culture in the early moments of American independence and the poetics of citation and of definition. Austin concludes that Webster's dictionaries helped redefine Americanism in an era of an emergent and unstable American political and cultural identity. Webster himself saw the dictionaries as a nationalizing device to separate America from Britain calling his his project a "federal language" with competing forces towards regularity on the one hand and innovation on the other. Austin suggests that the contradictions of Webster's lexicography were part of a larger play between liberty and order within American intellectual discourse with some pulled toward Europe and the past and others pulled toward America and the new future.14 For an international appreciation of the importance of Webster's dictionaries in setting the norms of the English language see Forque (1982).15 General dictionaries In a general dictionary each word may have multiple meanings. Some dictionaries include each separate meaning in the order of most common usage while others list definitions in historical order with the oldest usage first.16 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. 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 dialects 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 phonemic spelling /dknri/. American dictionaries however often use their own pronunciation spelling systems for example dictionary dk sh nr 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 This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009) 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 450000 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 much consideration in modern times. Most dictionaries of English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition and then outside of the definition itself add information alerting readers to 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 widespread use of dictionaries in schools 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 the meanings of words in English are primarily determined by usage and the language is being changed and created every day.17 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." Major English dictionaries A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson (prescriptive) The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Black's Law Dictionary a law dictionary Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Canadian Oxford Dictionary Century Dictionary Chambers Dictionary Collins English Dictionary Concise Oxford English Dictionary Longman Macquarie Dictionary a dictionary of Australian English Merriam-Webster New Oxford Dictionary of English Oxford Dictionary of English Oxford English Dictionary (descriptive) Random House Dictionary of the English Language Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language (prescriptive) Webster's Dictionary (descriptive) Webster's New World Dictionary For languages other than modern English see the article about that language. See also articles such as Japanese dictionaries. Others Double-Tongued Dictionary Free On-line Dictionary of Computing LEO (website) Logos Dictionary Pictual (website) Pseudodictionary Reference.com Urban Dictionary WWWJDIC See also Advanced learner's dictionary Bilingual dictionary Centre for Lexicography COBUILD a large corpus of English text Comparison of English dictionaries Corpus linguistics DICT the dictionary server protocol Dictionary Society of North America DictionaryForMids Electronic dictionary Encyclopedia Encyclopedic dictionary Fictitious entry Lexicographic error Lexicography Lexigraf List of online dictionaries Machine-readable dictionary Medical dictionary Monolingual learners' dictionaries Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Phonetic dictionary Reverse dictionary Rhyming dictionary Thesaurus Visual dictionary Wiktionary WordNet Notes a b Webster's New World College Dictionary Fourth Edition 2002 Sterkenburg 2003 pp. 155157 a b Sterkenburg 2003 pp. 34 Sterkenburg 2003 p. 7 R. R. K. Hartmann (2003). Lexicography: Dictionaries compilers critics and users. Routledge. p. 21. ISBN 9780415253666. http://books.google.com/booksidhLlhyvpg7KoC&pgPA21.  a b "Dictionary MSN Encarta". Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwbLyr75.  Peter Bing (2003). "The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet". Classical Philology 98 (4): 33048. doi:10.1086/422370.  "ms" J. Eckmann Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd ed. Brill 1582 Mulcaster's Elementarie Learning Dictionaries and Meaning The British Library A Brief History of English Lexicography Peter Erdmann and See-Young Cho Technische Universitt Berlin 1999. 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 a b Lynch "How Johnson's Dictionary Became the First Dictionary" Simon Winchester The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Nathan W. Austin "Lost in the Maze of Words: Reading and Re-reading Noah Webster's Dictionaries" Dissertation Abstracts International 2005 Vol. 65 Issue 12 p. 4561 Guy Jean Forgue "The Norm in American English" Revue Francaise d'Etudes Americaines Nov 1983 Vol. 8 Issue 18 pp 451461 http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/corereference/internal/chd.html Ned Halley The Wordsworth Dictionary of Modern English Grammar (2005) p. 84 References Bergenholtz Henning; Tarp Sven eds (1995). Manual of Specialised Lexicography: The Preparation of Specialised Dictionaries. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 9027216126.  Erdmann Peter; Cho See-Young. "A Brief History of English Lexicography". Technische Universitt Berlin. Archived from the original on 9 March 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080309181613/http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/bhistory.html. Retrieved 17 December 2010.  Landau Sidney I. (2001) 1984. Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521780403.  Nielsen Sandro (1994). The Bilingual LSP Dictionary: Principles and Practice for Legal Language. Tbingeb: Gunter Narr. ISBN 3823345338.  Nielsen Sandro (2008). "The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use". Lexikos 18: 170189. ISSN 1684-4904.  Winchester Simon (1998). The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. New York: HarperPerennial. ISBN 006099486X.  (published in the UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne). P. G. J. van Sterkenburg ed (2003). A practical guide to lexicography. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9781588113818.  External links Look up dictionary or wordbook in Wiktionary the free dictionary. Dictionary at the Open Directory Project Glossary of dictionary terms by the Oxford University Press Texts on Wikisource: "Dictionary". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.  Chisholm Hugh ed (1911). "Dictionary". Encyclopdia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.  "Dictionary". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.  Wikisource:Languages (directory of language-related works on Wikisource includes dictionaries) v d eLexicography Types of reference works Dictionary  Glossary  Lexicon  Thesaurus Types of dictionaries Bilingual  Biographical  Conceptual  Defining  Electronic  Encyclopedic  Language for specific purposes dictionary  Machine-readable  Maximizing  Medical  Minimizing  Monolingual learner's  Multi-field  Phonetic  Picture  Reverse  Rhyming  Rime  Single-field  Specialized  Sub-field  Visual Lexicographic projects Lexigraf  WordNet Other List of lexicographers  List of online dictionaries v d eLexicology Major terms Lexicon  Idiolect  Word  Lexis  Lexical unit Elements Morpheme  Grapheme  Glyphs  Phoneme  Sememe  Seme  Lexeme  Lemma  Meronymy  Chereme Semantic relations Holonymy  Hyponymy  Troponymy  Idiom  Synonym  Antonymy  Lexical semantics  Semantic net Fonctions Function word  Headword Fields Morphology  Controlled vocabulary  English lexicology and lexicography  Lexicographic error  Lexicographic information cost  Linguistic prescription  Specialised lexicography  International scientific vocabulary