subjects, and these have so multiplied, that dictionaries of things now rival in number and variety those of words or of languages, while they often far surpass them in bulk. There are dictionaries of biography and history, real and fictitious, general and special, relating to men of all countries, characters, and professions; dictionaries of bibliography, relating to all books, or to those of some particular kind or country; dictionaries of geography, of the whole world, of particular countries, or of small districts, of towns and of villages, of castles, monasteries, and other buildings. There are dictionaries of philosophy; of mathematics; of natural history, zoology, botany; of birds, trees, plants, and flowers; of chemistry, geology, and mineralogy; of architecture, painting, and music; of medicine, surgery, anatomy, pathology, and physiology; of diplomacy; of law, canon, civil, statutory, and criminal; of political and social sciences; of agriculture, rural economy, and gardening; of commerce, navigation, horsemanship, and the military art; of mechanics, machines, and the manual arts. There are dictionaries of antiquities, of chronology, of dates, of genealogy, of heraldry, of diplomatics, of abbreviations, of useful receipts, of monograms, of adulterations, and of very many other subjects. And lastly, there are dictionaries of the arts and sciences, and their comprehensive offspring, encyclopædias, which include in themselves every branch of knowledge. The tendency of dictionaries of language is to increase the vocabulary, to multiply articles; the tendencies of dictionaries of things, and especially of encyclopædias, is to diminish the number of articles, fusing subjects together as far as possible, and to develop the explanation, making it longer and more copious and circumstantial. This does away with the necessity of turning to many articles scattered through all parts of the work for a complete view of a subject. On the other hand, as requiring an index, it is less convenient for frequent reference on minor points.
Dictionarium is a word of low or modern Latinity;[1] dictio, from which it was formed, was used in mediæval Latin to mean a word. Lexicon is a corresponding word of Greek origin, meaning a book of or for words – a dictionary. A glossary is properly a collection of unusual or foreign words requiring explanation. It is the name frequently given to English dictionaries of dialects, which the Germans usually call idioticon, and the Italians vocabolario. Wörterbuch, a book of words, was first used among the Germans according to Grimm, by Kramer (1719), imitated from the Dutch woordenboek. From the Germans the Swedes and Danes adopted ordbok, ordbog. The Icelandic ordabôk, like the German, contains the genitive plural. The Slavonic nations use slovar, slovnik, and the Southern Slavs ryetshnik, from slovo, ryetsh, a word, formed, like dictionary and lexicon, without composition. Many other names have been given to dictionaries, as thesaurus, Sprachschatz, cornucopia, gazophylacium, comprehensorium, catholicon, to indicate their completeness; manipulus predicantium, promptorium puerorum, liber memorialis, hortus vocabulorum, ionia (a violet bed), alveary (a beehive), kamoos (the sea), haft kulzum (the seven seas), tsze tien (a standard of character), onomasticon, nomenclator, bibliotheca, elucidario, Mundart, Sammlung, clavis, scala, pharetra,[2] La Crusca from the great Italian dictionary, and Calepino (in Spanish and Italian) from the Latin dictionary of Calepinus.
A dictionary of language should contain all the words which may be reasonably looked for in it, so arranged as to be readily and surely found, and so explained as to make their meaning, and if possible their use, clear to those who have a competent knowledge of the language or languages in which the explanations are given. Some dictionaries may suppose a very considerable degree of knowledge in those who use them, but though one could not be written which would make every word clear to a young child, they should in general be as easy and simple as possible. A full and complete dictionary of a great literary language can be compiled only by great labour, patience, knowledge, and skill, employed for many years in collecting, correcting, adjusting, and completing the labours of many previous generations of workers. Such a dictionary should include all the words of the language. As a great library cannot select books and publications, but must collect and preserve all without regard to their apparent value or worthlessness, for it is impossible to foretell what may be valued in future times, or what may be required by its readers for completing their researches, so a complete and standard dictionary should make no choice. Words obsolete and newly coined, barbarous, vulgar, and affected, temporary, provincial, and local, belonging to peculiar classes, professions, pursuits, and trades, should all find their place, – the only question being as to the evidence for their existence, – not indeed, all received with equal honour and regard, but with their characteristics and defects duly noted and pointed out. A complete dictionary should be the complete record and picture, or, as Archbishop Trench says, the inventory of language. It must contain all words ever in any way belonging to it, in writing or in speech, or it will not be a complete record, and will not satisfy those who consult it. Lexicographers have too often tried to exercise a choice, and not content with being recorders, have made them selves judges of words, and refiners and improvers of language, and have attempted not only to reform the language, but to check it in that growth and development which is inherent in all living tongues, and to make their dictionaries standards and rules of language, rather than inventories and records. Unfortunately, this error is echoed by popular opinion; and a standard dictionary is too often supposed to be an arbitrator of words, rather than a standard of excellence among dictionaries. The intention of the author should be, as Bescherelle says, not to reform the language, but to present it with all its caprices, anomalies, irregularities, beauties, defects, – in a word, as the nation has made it. The precise value or worthlessness of a word can only be marked when it is admitted. If not found in the dictionary, it may be supposed to have been unknown to the author, as there is nothing to show that it has been condemned and rejected. The French Academy at first rejected all technical terms, but was compelled by popular clamour and the success of Furetière's dictionary, in which very many were given, to admit them in increasing numbers in its second and all subsequent editions. It is the more necessary that they
should not be excluded, as the meanings are difficult to learn, and are most often looked for; and a dictionary intended for general use, should, as Dr Johnson says, include the words belonging to every profession. Obsolete words are admitted by Johnson, Littré, and other first-rate lexicographers, only when they have remained in use- ↑ Joannes de Garlandia, who probably was born about 1275, and died soon after 1250, gives the following explanation in his Dictionarius, which is a classed vocabulary: – "Dictionarius dicitur libellus iste a dictionibus magis necessariis, quas tenetur quilibet scolaris, non tantum in scrinio de lignis facto, sed in cordis armariolo firmitur retinere." This has been supposed to be the first use of the word.
- ↑ An excellent dictionary of quotations, perhaps the first of the kind; a large folio volume printed in Strasburg about 1475, is entitled "Pharetra auctoritates et dicta doctorum, philosophorum, et poetarum continens."
