Quote:
Originally Posted by thedaffodils  Hello! Could someone please tell me what the different between "lexicon" and "dictionary" in the defintion 1 of Merrian-Master Dictionary is. Thanks!
eg. I bought an English-Chinese __ from a bookstore.
(1) lexicon; (2) dictionary
(Comment: I think both (1) and (2) are grammatically correct. But what will you think of the book if I use the different word?) |
A lexicon means a word book or dictionary of Latin, Greek or Hebrew language. In the modern times, the words lexicon is associated with the reasearch on the history of words, their origin and when they were imbibed into languae, their differnt usages and pronounciations. Thus a lexicon also gives the etymology of a given word.
Distionary gives directions or pronounciation symbols to help you pronounce a particular word. Thus any wordbook, which gives instruction about the diction or pronounciation of word can be called dictionary.
Thesaurus : the term thesaurus is also used frequently as a synonym for dictionary, but a theasurus is meant for a wordbook which explains the meaning of a word.
Usually a standard dictionary gives the following:
1) Orthography (and if there are, different spellings)
2) pronounciation gazzetteer
3) etymology of word
4) part of speech and plural of that word
5) usages in differnt contexts
6) different meanings of the same word.
In practical world, the field I am working in, a dictionary means any standard dictionary, and a lexicon refers to a word book which gives usages in different contexts and when you quote them in court cases, even the Supreme/Apex court approves the given meaning of standard Lexicons like that of Webster, Oxford or Cambridge.
I refer to lexicons and quote them often during my work. They are great help and very explanative(and also very very costly
).
lexicon vs. dictionary 
Re: lexicon vs. dictionary 
Linear Mode
