Frequently Asked Questions
Dictionaries
Is it, as that notoriously caustic creation Edmund Blackadder would have us believe:
'the most pointless book since How to Learn French was translated into French'?
Or is a dictionary, 'the universe in alphabetical order' (Anatole France) and 'full of suggestion, the raw material of possible poems and histories' (R.W. Emerson)?
Well, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dictionary is:
'A book dealing with the individual words of a language (or certain specified classes of them), so as to set forth their orthography, pronunciation, signification, and use, their synonyms, derivation, and history, or at least some of these facts: for convenience of reference, the words are arranged in some stated order, now, in most languages, alphabetical; and in larger dictionaries the information given is illustrated by quotations from literature; a word-book, vocabulary, or lexicon.'
also known (at various times) as:
abcedariaum, alveary (bee-hive) calepin, catholicon, glossary,
ortus (garden), polyglot, lexicon, thesaurus, verbal, word-book, world
of words.
Other questions in this section: What is a dictionary?
What are people referring to when they talk about the 'Oxford Dictionary'?
Are dictionaries always in alphabetical order?
Are dictionaries really necessary?
Are lexicographers good spellers?
Are other languages besides English recorded in huge multi-volume dictionaries?
Do dictionary-makers ever make mistakes?
Do you include words used on the Internet?
How can I access OED Online?
How do you decide if a new word should go in an Oxford dictionary?
How do you decide what to include in a dictionary?
How do you know what a word means?
How has computer technology affected dictionary-making?
How have dictionaries changed over the years?
How will a dictionary look in 2050?
How will revision affect the size of the OED?
Is there an official committee which regulates the English language?
What skills and talents does a lexicographer need?
When will the Third Edition of the OED be published?
Will you put the word I have invented into the dictionary?
If, after browsing the FAQs, you still can't find the answer to your question then submit your query to the AskOxford Language Query team.
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