Types of dictionaries

The term dictionary is used to denote a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and/or origin. There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these aspects: pronouncing (phonetical) dictionaries (by Daniel Jones) and etymological dictionaries (by Walter Skeat, by Erik Partridge, The Oxford English Dictionary). For dictionaries in which the words and their definitions belong to the same language the term unilingual or explanatory is used, whereas bilingual or translation dictionaries are those that explain words by giving their equivalents in another language.

Unilingual dictionaries are further subdivided with regard to the time.

Diachronic dictionaries, of which The Oxford English Dictionary is the main example, reflect the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered. They may be contrasted to synchronic or descriptive dictionaries of current English concerned with present meaning and usage of words.

Both bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special. General dictionaries represent the vocabulary as a whole. The group includes the thirteen volumes of The Oxford English Dictionary alongside with any miniature pocket dictionary. Some general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be considered general due to their coverage. They include, for instance, frequency dictionaries, i.e. lists of words, each of which is followed by a record of its frequency of occurrence in one or several sets of reading matter. A rhyming dictionary is also a general dictionary, though arranged in inverse order, and so is a thesaurus in spite of its unusual arrangement. General dictionaries are contrasted to special dictionaries whose stated aim is to cover only a certain specific part of the vocabulary. Special dictionaries may be further subdivided depending on whether the words are chosen according to the sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical dictionaries), the type of the units themselves (e. g. phraseological dictionaries) or the relationships existing between them (e.g. dictionaries of synonyms).

The first subgroup embraces specialized dictionaries which register and explain technical terms for various branches of knowledge, art and trade: linguistic, medical, technical, economical terms, etc. Unilingual books of this type giving definitions of terms are called glossaries. The second subgroup deals with specific language units, i.e. with phraseology, abbreviations, neologisms, borrowings, surnames, toponyms, proverbs and sayings, etc.

The third subgroup contains synonymic dictionaries. Dictionaries recording the complete vocabulary of some author are called concordances. They should be distinguished from those that deal only with difficult words, i.e. glossaries. To this group are also referred dialect dictionaries and dictionaries of Americanisms.

Theoretical Grammar