Dictionaries

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.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Oxford Dictionary of English
The New Oxford American Dictionary
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Collins Robert French Dictionary: French-English English-French

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FV: Annandale defines 'definition' as "an explanation of the signification of a term." Yet Oxford, on the other hand, defines it as "a statement of the precise meaning of a word." A small, perhaps negligible difference you might think. And neither, would you say, is necessarily more correct than the other? But now look up each of the words comprising each definition, and then the definitions of those definitions, and so on. Some still may only differ slightly, while others may differ quite a lot ...more
Mort W. Lumsden, Citations: A Brief Anthology

Joyce Carol Oates
Though words sometimes puzzled Alma, she never looked up any word in any dictionary; a word was like a pebble to be turned briefly in the hand, and tossed away, with no expectation that it would be encountered again.
Joyce Carol Oates, The Tattooed Girl

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