96-501: Glbtq.com (also known as the glbtq Encyclopedia Project ) was an online encyclopedia of gay , lesbian , bisexual , transgender , and queer ( GLBTQ ) culture. Launched in 2003, it was edited by Claude J. Summers , emeritus professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn , and published by Andrew "Wik" Wikholm . It was warmly received by critics, who praised its columns as well-researched. The encyclopedia closed in 2015; its content
192-554: A business dictionary ), a single-field dictionary narrowly covers one particular subject field (e.g. law), and a sub-field dictionary covers a more specialized 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
288-521: A specialized dictionary , also referred to as a technical dictionary, is a dictionary that focuses upon a specific subject field, as opposed to a dictionary that comprehensively contains words from the lexicon of a specific language or languages. 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.
384-401: A "dictionary", although 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. Apollonius
480-520: A 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography , and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta . The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection. The oldest known dictionaries were cuneiform tablets with bilingual Sumerian – Akkadian wordlists, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria ) and dated to roughly 2300 BCE,
576-428: A CD-ROM disc. The user would execute the encyclopedia's software program to see a menu that allowed them to start browsing the encyclopedia's articles, and most encyclopedias also supported a way to search the contents of the encyclopedia. The article text was usually hyperlinked and also included photographs , audio clips (for example in articles about historical speeches or musical instruments), and video clips . In
672-405: A General Dictionary" which boldly plagiarized Blount's work, and the two criticised each other. This created more interest in the dictionaries. John Wilkins ' 1668 essay on philosophical language contains a list of 11,500 words with careful distinctions, compiled by William Lloyd . Elisha Coles published his "English Dictionary" in 1676. It was not until Samuel Johnson 's A Dictionary of
768-589: A Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts'), better known as Encyclopédie ( French: [ɑ̃siklɔpedi] ), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes . It was edited by Denis Diderot and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert . The Encyclopédie
864-722: A compendium of articles (either wholly or partially taken) from a specific encyclopedia. Four major elements define an encyclopedia: its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production: Some works entitled "dictionaries" are similar to encyclopedias, especially those concerned with a particular field (such as the Dictionary of the Middle Ages , the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships , and Black's Law Dictionary ). The Macquarie Dictionary , Australia's national dictionary, became an encyclopedic dictionary after its first edition in recognition of
960-530: A dictionary between Oghuz Turkish, Arabic and Persian. But it is not clear who wrote the dictionary or in which century exactly it was published. It was written in old Anatolian Turkish from the Seljuk period and not the late medieval Ottoman period. In India around 1320, Amir Khusro compiled the Khaliq-e-bari, which mainly dealt with Hindustani and Persian words. Arabic dictionaries were compiled between
1056-895: A discussion board, interviews, factoids on queer history and spotlights on selected articles. All entries in the encyclopedia had bylines and references. Its editor was Claude J. Summers , emeritus professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn . Andrew "Wik" Wikholm was the founder and publisher. Over the projects life, more than two hundred people contributed to the encyclopedia, including Shaun Cole ( curator at London 's Victoria and Albert Museum ) and Edward Sullivan (professor of fine arts at New York University ). Other contributors include Tee Corinne ( photographer and visual artist ), William Hood (professor of art at Oberlin College ), Karla Jay (director of Women's Studies at Pace University ), Stephen O. Murray (writer), and Jim Provenzano (writer). A decline in advertising revenue led
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#17330859968811152-440: A global or a limited range of knowledge), cultural perspective (authoritative, ideological, didactic, utilitarian), authorship (qualifications, style), readership (education level, background, interests, capabilities), and the technologies available for their production and distribution (hand-written manuscripts, small or large print runs, Internet). As a valued source of reliable information compiled by experts, printed versions found
1248-701: A license compatible with Misplaced Pages, including Enciclopedia Libre (2002–2021) in Spanish and Conservapedia (2006–), Scholarpedia (2006–), and Citizendium (2007–) in English, the latter of which had become inactive by 2014. Dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages , often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for logographic languages), which may include information on definitions , usage, etymologies , pronunciations , translation , etc. It
1344-405: A prominent place in libraries , schools and other educational institutions. The appearance of digital and open-source versions in the 21st century, such as Misplaced Pages (combining with the wiki website format), has vastly expanded the accessibility, authorship, readership, and variety of encyclopedia entries. Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around
1440-467: A published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer , Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced spellings that became American English , replacing "colour" with "color", substituting "wagon" for "waggon", and printing "center" instead of "centre". He also added American words, like "skunk" and "squash", which did not appear in British dictionaries. At
1536-576: Is a German-language encyclopedia which until 2009 was published by the F. A. Brockhaus printing house. The first edition originated in the Conversations-Lexikon published by Renatus Gotthelf Löbel and Franke in Leipzig 1796–1808. Renamed Der Große Brockhaus in 1928 and Brockhaus Enzyklopädie from 1966, the current 21st thirty-volume edition contains about 300,000 entries on about 24,000 pages, with about 40,000 maps, graphics and tables. It
1632-704: 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 comprehensive 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
1728-487: Is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge , either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries . Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning
1824-596: Is a human being but the direct user is a program. Such a dictionary does not need to be able to be printed on paper. The structure of the content is not linear, ordered entry by entry but has the form of a complex network (see Diathesis alternation ). Because most of these dictionaries are used to control machine translations or cross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) the content is usually multilingual and usually of huge size. In order to allow formalized exchange and merging of dictionaries, an ISO standard called Lexical Markup Framework (LMF) has been defined and used among
1920-416: Is a linguistic work that primarily focuses on an alphabetical listing of words and their definitions . Synonymous words and those related by the subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information , analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave
2016-489: Is a sub-field dictionary. In terms of the 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 and Yadgar Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms ) whereas single-field and sub-field dictionaries tend to maximize coverage within a limited subject field ( The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology ). Another variant
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#17330859968812112-434: Is accessible via an online archive. The website was launched in 2003 with over 1 million words of entries, and was regularly updated until its closure in 2015. Before its closure, the encyclopedia contained more than 2.2 million words—including overviews and surveys—covering almost 2,000 entries. The entries are categorized into three departments: Arts , Literature , and History and Social Sciences . The site also included
2208-417: Is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive. The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in
2304-607: Is also found in dictionaries, and vice versa. In particular, dictionary entries often contain factual information about the thing named by the word. The earliest encyclopedic work to have survived to modern times is the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder , a Roman statesman living in the 1st century AD, a work indebted to Varro (1st century BCE). He compiled a work of 37 chapters covering natural history , architecture, medicine, geography , geology, and all aspects of
2400-585: Is considered the first dictionary of Arabic . The oldest existing Japanese dictionary, the c. 835 CE Tenrei Banshō Meigi , was also a glossary of written Chinese. In Frahang-i Pahlavig , Aramaic heterograms are listed together with their translation in the Middle Persian language and phonetic transcription in the Pazend alphabet. A 9th-century CE Irish dictionary, Sanas Cormaic , contained etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words. In
2496-466: 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, with even the most descriptive dictionaries providing conservative continuity. In
2592-579: Is most famous for representing the thought of the Enlightenment . According to Denis Diderot in the article "Encyclopédie", the Encyclopédies aim was "to change the way people think" and for people to be able to inform themselves and to know things. He and the other contributors advocated for the secularization of learning away from the Jesuits . Diderot wanted to incorporate all of the world's knowledge into
2688-489: Is necessary to know". Among the areas covered were: grammar , rhetoric , mathematics , geometry , music , astronomy , medicine , law , the Catholic Church and heretical sects, pagan philosophers , languages , cities , animals and birds , the physical world , geography , public buildings , roads , metals , rocks , agriculture , ships , clothes , food , and tools . Another Christian encyclopedia
2784-546: Is respelled as "dĭk ′ shə-nĕr′ē" in the American Heritage Dictionary . The IPA is more commonly used within the British Commonwealth countries. Yet others use their own pronunciation respelling systems without diacritics: for example, dictionary may be respelled as DIK -shə-nerr-ee . Some online or electronic dictionaries provide audio recordings of words being spoken. Histories and descriptions of
2880-492: Is the glossary , an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialized field, such as medicine ( medical dictionary ). 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,
2976-494: Is the largest German-language printed encyclopedia in the 21st century. In the United States, the 1950s and 1960s saw the introduction of several large popular encyclopedias, often sold on installment plans. The best known of these were World Book and Funk and Wagnalls . As many as 90% were sold door to door . Jack Lynch says in his book You Could Look It Up that encyclopedia salespeople were so common that they became
glbtq: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture - Misplaced Pages Continue
3072-623: The Etymologiae ( c. 600–625 ), also known by classicists as the Origines (abbreviated Orig .). This encyclopedia—the first such Christian epitome —formed a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 books based on hundreds of classical sources, including the Naturalis Historia . Of the Etymologiae in its time it was said quaecunque fere sciri debentur , "practically everything that it
3168-627: The Four Great Books of Song , compiled by the 11th century during the early Song dynasty (960–1279), was a massive literary undertaking for the time. The last encyclopedia of the four, the Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau , amounted to 9.4 million Chinese characters in 1,000 written volumes. The Yongle Encyclopedia (completed 1408) comprised 11,095 volumes. There were many great encyclopedists throughout Chinese history, including
3264-453: The Encyclopédie and hoped that the text could disseminate all this information to the public and future generations. Thus, it is an example of democratization of knowledge . The Encyclopædia Britannica ( Latin for 'British Encyclopaedia') is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia . It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although
3360-552: The GNUPedia , an online encyclopedia which, similar to the GNU operating system , would be a "generic" resource. The concept was very similar to Interpedia, but more in line with Stallman's GNU philosophy. It was not until Nupedia and later Misplaced Pages that a stable 💕 project was able to be established on the Internet. The English Misplaced Pages , which was started in 2001, became
3456-465: The Leiden Glossary ). The Catholicon (1287) by Johannes Balbus , a large grammatical work with an alphabetical lexicon, was widely adopted. It served as the basis for several bilingual dictionaries and was one of the earliest books (in 1460) to be printed. In 1502 Ambrogio Calepino 's Dictionarium was published, originally a monolingual Latin dictionary, which over the course of the 16th century
3552-694: The Lisan al-`Arab (13th century, still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) and al-Qamus al-Muhit (14th century) 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 . In medieval Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in vernacular or simpler Latin were in use (e.g.
3648-619: The Renaissance , the creation of printing allowed a wider diffusion of encyclopedias and every scholar could have his or her copy. The De expetendis et fugiendis rebus by Giorgio Valla was posthumously printed in 1501 by Aldo Manuzio in Venice . This work followed the traditional scheme of liberal arts. However, Valla added the translation of ancient Greek works on mathematics (firstly by Archimedes ), newly discovered and translated. The Margarita Philosophica by Gregor Reisch , printed in 1503,
3744-592: 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 . According to the Manual of Specialized Lexicographies ,
3840-542: The 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule. In the 21st century, the Britannica suffered first from competition with
3936-519: The 12th century, The Karakhanid - Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari finished his work " Divan-u Lügat'it Türk ", a dictionary about the Turkic dialects, but especially Karakhanid Turkic . His work contains about 7500 to 8000 words and it was written to teach non Turkic Muslims, especially the Abbasid Arabs, the Turkic language. Al-Zamakhshari wrote a small Arabic dictionary called "Muḳaddimetü'l-edeb" for
glbtq: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture - Misplaced Pages Continue
4032-479: The 1969 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , the first dictionary to use corpus linguistics . 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. In many languages, words can appear in many different forms, but only
4128-450: The 8th and 14th centuries, 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
4224-492: The CD-ROM age, the video clips had usually a low resolution, often 160x120 or 320x240 pixels. Such encyclopedias which made use of photos, audio and video were also called multimedia encyclopedias . Microsoft 's Encarta , launched in 1993, was a landmark example as it had no printed equivalent. Articles were supplemented with video and audio files as well as numerous high-quality images. After sixteen years, Microsoft discontinued
4320-529: The Dutch and the Germans call theirs, word-books, than dictionaries in the superior sense of that title." In 1616, John Bullokar described the history of the dictionary with his "English Expositor". Glossographia by Thomas Blount , published in 1656, contains more than 10,000 words along with their etymologies or histories. Edward Phillips wrote another dictionary in 1658, entitled " The New World of English Words : Or
4416-698: The Encarta line of products in 2009. Other examples of CD-ROM encyclopedia are Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia and Britannica . Digital encyclopedias enable "Encyclopedia Services" (such as Wikimedia Enterprise ) to facilitate programmatic access to the content. The concept of a 💕 began with the Interpedia proposal on Usenet in 1993, which outlined an Internet-based online encyclopedia to which anyone could submit content that would be freely accessible. Early projects in this vein included Everything2 and Open Site . In 1999, Richard Stallman proposed
4512-482: The English Language (1755) that a more reliable English dictionary was produced. Many people today mistakenly believe that Johnson wrote the first English dictionary: a testimony to this legacy. 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
4608-515: 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 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
4704-508: The English language were glossaries of French, Spanish or Latin words along with their definitions in English. The word "dictionary" was invented by an Englishman called John of Garland in 1220 – he had written a book Dictionarius to help with Latin "diction". An early non-alphabetical list of 8000 English words was the Elementarie , created by Richard Mulcaster in 1582. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary
4800-695: The Greek alphabet. From India, the Siribhoovalaya (Kannada: ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯ), dated between 800 A.D. to 15th century, is a work of Kannada literature written by Kumudendu Muni , a Jain monk. It is unique because rather than employing alphabets, it is composed entirely in Kannada numerals . Many philosophies which existed in the Jain classics are eloquently and skillfully interpreted in the work. The enormous encyclopedic work in China of
4896-455: The Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre. The modern encyclopedia evolved from the dictionary in the 18th century; this lineage can be seen in the alphabetical order of print encyclopedias. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been compiled by well-educated, well-informed content experts , but they are significantly different in structure. A dictionary
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#17330859968814992-587: The Sophist ( fl. 1st century CE) wrote the oldest surviving Homeric lexicon. The first Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa , was written by Amarasimha c. 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. Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi's 8th century Kitab al-'Ayn
5088-561: The Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves – to give its full title. Organized alphabetically, its content does indeed contain an explanation not merely of the terms used in the arts and sciences, but of the arts and sciences themselves. Sir Isaac Newton contributed his only published work on chemistry to the second volume of 1710. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers ( French for 'Encyclopedia, or
5184-809: The Turkic-Khwarazm ruler Atsiz . In the 14th century, the Codex Cumanicus was finished and it served as a dictionary about the Cuman -Turkic language. While in Mamluk Egypt , Ebû Hayyân el-Endelüsî finished his work "Kitâbü'l-İdrâk li-lisâni'l-Etrâk", a dictionary about the Kipchak and Turcoman languages spoken in Egypt and the Levant . A dictionary called "Bahşayiş Lügati", which is written in old Anatolian Turkish, served also as
5280-568: The actual use of words. Most dictionaries of English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition, and then, outside of the definition itself, provide 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 stand (nonstandard). American Heritage goes further, discussing issues separately in numerous "usage notes." Encarta provides similar notes, but
5376-477: The age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840, the second edition was published in two volumes. Webster's dictionary was acquired by G & C Merriam Co. in 1843, after his death, and has since been published in many revised editions. Merriam-Webster was acquired by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1964. Controversy over the lack of usage advice in the 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary spurred publication of
5472-449: The butt of jokes. He describes their sales pitch saying, "They were selling not books but a lifestyle, a future, a promise of social mobility." A 1961 World Book ad said, "You are holding your family's future in your hands right now," while showing a feminine hand holding an order form. As of the 1990s, two of the most prominent encyclopedias published in the United States were Collier's Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana . By
5568-604: The car). Whereas hi taharóg otí , literally 'she will kill me', is colloquial, me (a variant of ma 'what') is archaic, resulting in a combination that is unutterable in real life. A historical dictionary is a specific kind of descriptive dictionary which describes the development of words and senses over time, usually using citations to original source material to support its conclusions. In contrast to traditional dictionaries, which are designed to be used by human beings, dictionaries for natural language processing (NLP) are built to be used by computer programs. The final user
5664-400: The company has changed ownership seven times. The encyclopaedia is maintained by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia . Printed for 244 years, the Britannica was
5760-483: The dictionaries of other languages on Misplaced Pages include: The age of the Internet brought online dictionaries to the desktop and, more recently, to the smart phone. David Skinner in 2013 noted that "Among the top ten lookups on Merriam-Webster Online at this moment are holistic, pragmatic, caveat, esoteric and bourgeois. Teaching users about words they don't already know has been, historically, an aim of lexicography, and modern dictionaries do this well." There exist
5856-478: The digital multimedia encyclopaedia Microsoft Encarta , and later with the online peer-produced encyclopaedia Misplaced Pages . In March 2012, it announced it would no longer publish printed editions and would focus instead on the online version. Britannica has been assessed as being more politically centrist compared to Misplaced Pages, which is considered to have a more left-leaning orientation. The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie ( German for Brockhaus Encyclopedia )
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#17330859968815952-726: The first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca , for Italian , was published. It served as the model for similar works in French and English. In 1690 in Rotterdam was published, posthumously, the Dictionnaire Universel by Antoine Furetière for French . In 1694 appeared the first edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (still published, with the ninth edition not complete as of 2021 ). Between 1712 and 1721
6048-555: The first to bring all these elements together, creating the first "modern" dictionary. 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. A complete ten-volume first edition was not released until 1928. One of the main contributors to this modern dictionary
6144-684: The first volume of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal which was completed in 1998. Also in 1863 Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl published the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language . The Duden dictionary dates back to 1880, and is currently the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The decision to start work on the Svenska Akademiens ordbok was taken in 1787. The earliest dictionaries in
6240-470: The form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE . The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall , written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as
6336-521: The future years to come. The word encyclopedia ( encyclo | pedia ) comes from the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία , transliterated enkyklios paideia , meaning 'general education' from enkyklios ( ἐγκύκλιος ), meaning 'circular, recurrent, required regularly, general' and paideia ( παιδεία ), meaning 'education, rearing of a child'; together, the phrase literally translates as 'complete instruction' or 'complete knowledge'. However,
6432-402: The globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in
6528-801: The industrial and academic community. In many languages, such as the English language, the pronunciation of some words is not consistently apparent from their spelling. In these languages, dictionaries usually provide the pronunciation. For example, the definition for the word dictionary might be followed by the International Phonetic Alphabet spelling / ˈ d ɪ k ʃ ə n ər i / (in British English) or / ˈ d ɪ k ʃ ə n ɛr i / (in American English). American English dictionaries often use their own pronunciation respelling systems with diacritics , for example dictionary
6624-642: The lack of illustrations. In an otherwise positive review, Reference Reviews felt that the website's advertising was intrusive; Choice disagreed, finding it innocuous. The website was termed the "Encyclopedia Britanniqueer" by The Advocate , and one of the "Best Free Reference Web Sites" by the American Library Association . In association with Cleis Press , glbtq.com produced three books: Encyclopedia An encyclopedia ( American English ) or encyclopaedia ( British English ) (from Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία meaning 'general education')
6720-452: The late 20th century, encyclopedias were being published on CD-ROMs for use with personal computers . This was the usual way computer users accessed encyclopedic knowledge from the 1980s and 1990s. Later, DVD discs replaced CD-ROMs, and by the mid-2000s, internet encyclopedias were dominant and replaced disc-based software encyclopedias. CD-ROM encyclopedias were usually a macOS or Microsoft Windows (3.0, 3.1 or 95/98) application on
6816-416: 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. 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. " Sometimes
6912-565: The longest-running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh , in three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size; the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810), it had expanded to 20 volumes. Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th (1875–1889) and 11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Starting with
7008-426: The reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term , and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge. To address those needs, an encyclopedia article is typically not limited to simple definitions, and is not limited to defining an individual word, but provides a more extensive meaning for a subject or discipline . In addition to defining and listing synonymous terms for
7104-411: The resources by themselves, so multiple publishers would come together with their resources to create better encyclopedias. Later, rivalry grew, causing copyright to occur due to weak underdeveloped laws. John Harris is often credited with introducing the now-familiar alphabetic format in 1704 with his English Lexicon Technicum: Or, A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only
7200-469: The rest of English, and even the 4000 most common English idioms and metaphors , can be defined. 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
7296-557: The same dictionary can be descriptive in some domains and prescriptive in others. For example, according to Ghil'ad Zuckermann , the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary is "at war with itself": whereas its coverage (lexical items) and glosses (definitions) are descriptive and colloquial, its vocalization is prescriptive. This internal conflict results in absurd sentences such as hi taharóg otí kshetiré me asíti lamkhonít (she'll tear me apart when she sees what I've done to
7392-608: The scientist and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095) with his Dream Pool Essays of 1088; the statesman, inventor, and agronomist Wang Zhen (active 1290–1333) with his Nong Shu of 1313; and Song Yingxing (1587–1666) with his Tiangong Kaiwu . Song Yingxing was termed the " Diderot of China" by British historian Joseph Needham . Before the advent of the printing press, encyclopedic works were all hand-copied and thus rarely available, beyond wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning: they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it. During
7488-473: 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
7584-452: The subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words , such as their etymology , meaning, pronunciation , use, and grammatical forms. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years and have evolved considerably during that time as regards language (written in a major international or a vernacular language), size (few or many volumes), intent (presentation of
7680-423: 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 . There
7776-535: The things for which those words stand. Thus, while dictionary entries are inextricably fixed to the word described, encyclopedia articles can be given a different entry name. As such, dictionary entries are not fully translatable into other languages, but encyclopedia articles can be. In practice, however, the distinction is not concrete, as there is no clear-cut difference between factual, "encyclopedic" information and linguistic information such as appear in dictionaries. Thus encyclopedias may contain material that
7872-515: The time of the Akkadian Empire . The early 2nd millennium BCE Urra=hubullu glossary is the canonical Babylonian version of such bilingual Sumerian wordlists. A Chinese dictionary , the c. 3rd century BCE Erya , is the earliest surviving monolingual dictionary; and some sources cite the Shizhoupian (probably compiled sometime between 700 BCE to 200 BCE, possibly earlier) as
7968-473: The topic, the article can treat the topic's more extensive meaning in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject. An encyclopedia article also often includes many maps and illustrations , as well as bibliography and statistics . An encyclopedia is, theoretically, not written to convince, although one of its goals is indeed to convince its reader of its veracity. In addition, sometimes books or reading lists are compiled from
8064-515: The two separate words were reduced to a single word due to a scribal error by copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of Quintillian in 1470. The copyists took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaedia , with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the Neo-Latin word encyclopaedia , which in turn came into English. Because of this compounded word, fifteenth-century readers since have often, and incorrectly, thought that
8160-464: The use of proper nouns in common communication, and the words derived from such proper nouns. There are some broad differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries. Most noticeably, encyclopedia articles are longer, fuller and more thorough than entries in most general-purpose dictionaries. There are differences in content as well. Generally speaking, dictionaries provide linguistic information about words themselves, while encyclopedias focus more on
8256-447: The website to shut down on August 1, 2015. Its contents were archived by ONE, Inc. , and are accessible at glbtqarchive.com. The encyclopedia was well received by reviewers. Library Journal found it well-researched and described its columns as "lively and succinct". Writing that the contributor's backgrounds were impressive, Choice Reviews called the website "phenomenal" and praised the "great, nearly faultless, text", but bemoaned
8352-461: The work was completed in 1961. Between 1861 and 1874 was published the Dizionario della lingua italiana by Niccolò Tommaseo . Between 1862 and 1874 was published the six volumes of A magyar nyelv szótára (Dictionary of Hungarian Language) by Gergely Czuczor and János Fogarasi. Émile Littré published the Dictionnaire de la langue française between 1863 and 1872. In the same year 1863 appeared
8448-517: The world around him. This work became very popular in Antiquity , was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed in 1470, and has remained popular ever since as a source of information on the Roman world, and especially Roman art , Roman technology and Roman engineering . The Spanish scholar Isidore of Seville was the first Christian writer to try to compile a summa of universal knowledge,
8544-832: The world's largest encyclopedia in 2004 at the 300,000 article stage. By late 2005, Misplaced Pages had produced over two million articles in more than 80 languages with content licensed under the copyleft GNU Free Documentation License . As of August 2009, Misplaced Pages had over 3 million articles in English and well over 10 million combined articles in over 250 languages. Today, Misplaced Pages has 6,918,189 articles in English, over 60 million combined articles in over 300 languages, and over 250 million combined pages including project and discussion pages. Since 2002, other 💕s appeared, including Hudong (2005–) and Baidu Baike (2006–) in Chinese, and Google's Knol (2008–2012) in English. Some MediaWiki-based encyclopedias have appeared, usually under
8640-661: Was A Table Alphabeticall , written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604. The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford . This dictionary, and 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
8736-422: Was a complete encyclopedia explaining the seven liberal arts . Financial, commercial, legal, and intellectual factors changed the size of encyclopedias. Middle classes had more time to read and encyclopedias helped them to learn more. Publishers wanted to increase their output so some countries like Germany started selling books missing alphabetical sections, to publish faster. Also, publishers could not afford all
8832-523: Was an ex-army surgeon, William Chester Minor , a convicted murderer who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane. The OED remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day, with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months. 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
8928-590: Was enlarged to become a multilingual glossary. In 1532 Robert Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae latinae and in 1572 his son Henri Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae graecae , which served up to the 19th century as the basis of Greek lexicography. The first monolingual Spanish dictionary written was Sebastián Covarrubias 's Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española , published in 1611 in Madrid, Spain. In 1612
9024-521: Was firstly published in 1777; it has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published. The first edition of A Greek-English Lexicon by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott appeared in 1843; this work remained the basic dictionary of Greek until the end of the 20th century. And in 1858 was published the first volume of the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Brothers Grimm ;
9120-514: Was published the Vocabulario portughez e latino written by Raphael Bluteau. The Royal Spanish Academy published the first edition of the Diccionario de la lengua española (still published, with a new edition about every decade) in 1780; their Diccionario de Autoridades , which included quotes taken from literary works, was published in 1726. The Totius Latinitatis lexicon by Egidio Forcellini
9216-574: Was the Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum of Cassiodorus (543–560) dedicated to the Christian divinity and the seven liberal arts. The encyclopedia of Suda , a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, had 30,000 entries, many drawings from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. The text was arranged alphabetically with some slight deviations from common vowel order and placed in
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