Crossword clues for dictionary
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dictionary \Dic"tion*a*ry\, n.; pl. Dictionaries. [Cf. F. dictionnaire. See Diction.]
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A book containing the words of a language, arranged alphabetically, with explanations of their meanings; a lexicon; a vocabulary; a wordbook.
I applied myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time the materials of a dictionary.
--Johnson. Hence, a book containing the words belonging to any system or province of knowledge, arranged alphabetically; as, a dictionary of medicine or of botany; a biographical dictionary.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1520s, from Medieval Latin dictionarium "collection of words and phrases," from Latin dictionarius "of words," from dictio "word" (see diction). Probably first English use in title of a book was in Sir Thomas Elyot's "Latin Dictionary" (1538) though Latin Dictionarius was so used from early 13c. Grose's 1788 "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" has "RICHARD SNARY. A dictionary."\n\nDICTIONARY, 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.
[Bierce]
\nWiktionary
n. 1 A reference work with a list of words from one or more languages, normally ordered alphabetically and explaining each word's meaning and sometimes containing information on its etymology, usage, translations(,) and other dat
2 By extension, any work that has a list of material organized alphabetically; e.g. biographical dictionary, encyclopedic dictionary. 3 (label en computing) An associative array, a data structure where each value is referenced by a particular key, analogous to words and definitions in a physical dictionary. v
1 (label en transitive) To look up in a dictionary. 2 (label en transitive) To add to a dictionary. 3 (label en intransitive rare) To compile a dictionary. 4 (label en intransitive) To appear in a dictionary.
WordNet
n. a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them [syn: lexicon]
Wikipedia
A dictionary is a list of words and their meanings.
Dictionary may also refer to:
- Biographical dictionary
- Encyclopedic dictionary, sometimes titled Dictionary of... for example
Dictionary is an application developed by Apple Inc. as a part of OS X. The application provides definitions and synonyms from various dictionaries, Wikipedia articles and a glossary of Apple-related terms.
Dictionary was introduced in OS X 10.4 with the New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus (as well as the Wikipedia and Apple sections). 10.5 added Japanese dictionaries, 10.7 added the British Oxford Dictionary of English, and 10.8 added French, German, Spanish and Chinese.
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), with usage of information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, translation, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon. It is a lexicographical product designed for utility and function, curated with selected data, presented in a way that shows inter-relationship among the data.
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 purposes—words 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 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 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 dictionary of general-purpose.
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 studies—this 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.
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. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.
Usage examples of "dictionary".
Jones was not an Egyptologist, but a specialist in Assyriology who had come from California to work on the great Assyrian dictionary.
But after the car carrying Monk, Grace, Bill and old Benjy vanished, Renny spoke for approximately two minutes without using a word that could be found in a dictionary.
In addition to exegetical studies on Buddhism and Confucianism, they compiled dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference-type materials that provided the groundwork for nearly all subsequent scholarly activity in premodern Japan.
He was a tiny man, under five feet, and though suffering the continuing ills of the hypochondriac he had translated all of Plato and become a living dictionary of ancient philosophies by translating the body of Egyptian wisdom before devouring the work of the sages from Aristotle through the Alexandrians, Confucianists, Zoroastrians.
On referring to the great encyclopaedical and bibliographical dictionary, edited by Fluegel, it will be found, under No.
Having made its debut appearance in the dictionary in 1929, this rather arcane notion of foreplay has remained strangely static.
Or, to put it in a way that a dictionary writer might like better, Phariseeism is the belief that a man or woman can lay claim to moral superiority by certain austere habits of behavior, plain dress, and frugal living.
Gilbert Cooper related, that soon after the publication of his Dictionary, Garrick being asked by Johnson what people said of it, told him, that among other animadversions, it was objected that he cited authorities which were beneath the dignity of such a work, and mentioned Richardson.
One essential matter, however, I understood was necessary to be previously settled, which was obtaining such an addition to his income, as would be sufficient to enable him to defray the expence in a manner becoming the first literary character of a great nation, and independent of all his other merits, the Authour of THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
There a computer, codenamed Dictionary, searches for those words and numbers among the millions of messages passing through the intercept antennas.
You get the dictionary and read about the condors of the Andes Mountains.
We spoke of Rolt, to whose Dictionary of Commerce Dr. Johnson wrote the Preface.
I learnt from Dr. James, whom I helped in writing the proposals for his Dictionary and also a little in the Dictionary itself.
Dictionary itself, or any other work, had conceived such a reverence for him, that he urgently begged Dr. Burney to give him the cover of the first letter he had received from him, as a relick of so estimable a writer.
They were innately unwarlike, were the Indigenes: trees would sing and frogs would write dictionaries sooner than the Indigenes would begin raising their hands in violence.