page_title: Historical dictionary
section_title: Features
hierarchical_section_title: Historical dictionary / Features
caption_attribution_description: English: The entry 'encyclopedia' from the New English Dictionary (later known as the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary).
context_page_description: A historical dictionary or dictionary on historical principles is a type of dictionary which deals not only with the present-day meanings of words but also the historical development of their forms and meanings. It may also describe the vocabulary of an earlier stage of a language's development without covering present-day usage at all. A historical dictionary is primarily of interest to scholars of language, but may also be used as a general dictionary or by those who are interested in understanding a word's development over time.
context_section_description: Typical features of a historical dictionary are:
  Senses of words listed in the order they were first used, allowing the development of meaning over time to be seen
  Comprehensive etymological information, often directly referencing academic research on word history
  Use of illustrative quotations, complete with citations of their sources, providing references and proof of a word's actual existence and use in a given time period
  Dates of first use (and, for obsolete usages, last use) with each word and each sense of each word (if there are quotations in the dictionary, the first quotation is usually the very first example which is known)
  However, not all dictionaries which are called 'historical' have all of these features. For example, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary includes only minimal quotations, with most entries having only an approximate date of first use, and the Webster's New International Dictionary (which, though it does not market itself as historical, is founded on historical principles) features only dates of first use and does not order its senses chronologically.
caption: Example of an entry from a historical dictionary ('encyclopedia' from the New English Dictionary), showing use of cited quotations and chronological ordering of senses.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "725", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2282"}