Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 965–967Cite as

Electronic Dictionary

  • Reference work entry

  • 293 Accesses

Synonyms

eDictionary; Machine-readable dictionary (MRD); Terminological database

Definition

An electronic dictionary contains lexicographic information that is stored and accessed via a computer. The term “electronic dictionary” may refer to the data alone (e.g., a machine-readable dictionary), but more typically refers to a software or software/hardware system that provides access to dictionary data. Although a dictionary may include encyclopedic entries, it is typically distinct from an electronic encyclopedia. Terminological databases are special-purpose dictionaries that are used primarily to distinguish domain-specific terminology and choose appropriate terms when translating technical documents. Thesauri are special-purpose word books organized by relationships between words. They may contain definitions, but most famously, Roget’s Thesaurus (available in electronic form from Project Gutenberg) does not.

Historical Background

The first widely available electronic data from print...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   2,500.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Recommended Reading

  1. Amsler R.A. Machine-readable dictionaries, Chapter 6. In Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), M.E. Williams (ed.). Knowledge Industry Publications, vol. 19, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Amsler R.A. The Structure of the Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Byrd R.J., Calzolari N., Chodorow M.S., Klavans J.L., Neff M.S., and Rizk O.A. Tools and methods for computational lexicology. Comput. Linguistics, 13(3–4):219–240, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Fellbaum C. WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Sérasset G. Recent trends of electronic dictionary research and development in europe. Technical Memorandum, Electronic Dictionary Research (EDR). Tokyo, Japan, 1993, p. 93.

    Google Scholar 

  6. TEI Consortium. Dictionaries. TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Available online at: http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/html/DI.html (accessed on February 21, 2008).

  7. Weiner E.S.C. Computerizing the Oxford English Dictionary. Scholarly Publishing 16(3):239–253, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSC, Falls Church, VA, USA

    Robert A. Amsler

Authors
  1. Robert A. Amsler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this entry

Cite this entry

Amsler, R.A. (2009). Electronic Dictionary. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_809

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation