Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important. For the reader wanting additional information, see Jerry Norman (1988:170-180) for an overview or Paul Fu-mien Yang (1985) for a scholarly bibliography. The Zhou Dynasty (Chinese: 周朝; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: chou chao; 11th century BC to 256 BC) followed the Shang (Yin) Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty in China. ... In mathematics, the lexicographical order, or dictionary order, is a natural order structure of the cartesian product of two ordered sets. ...

Terminology

Chinese dichotomizes dictionaries for written and spoken forms; zidian "character/logograph dictionary" and cidian "word/phrase dictionary". For character dictionaries, zidian (Chinese: 字典; Pinyin: zìdiǎn; Wade-Giles: tzu-tien; literally "character dictionary") combines zi (字 "character, graph; letter, script, writing; word") and dian (典 "dictionary, encyclopedia; standard, rule; statute, canon; classical allusion"). For word dictionaries, cidian is interchangeably written (辭典/辞典; cídiǎn; tz'u-tien; "word dictionary") or (詞典/词典; cídiǎn; tz'u-tien; "word dictionary"); using cí (辭; "word, speech; phrase, expression; diction, phraseology; statement; a kind of poetic prose; depart; decline; resign"), and its graphic variant cí (詞; "word, term; expression, phrase; speech, statement; part of speech; a kind of tonal poetry"). Zidian is a much older and more common word than cidian, and Yang (1985:xxii) notes zidian is often "used for both 'character dictionary' and 'word dictionary'." Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ...

Traditional Chinese lexicography

The first Chinese dictionaries only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts. For example, the Shi Zhou Pian (史籀篇 "Compilation by Historian Zhou") was supposedly written by Shi Zhou, a scribe or historian in the court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE- 782 BCE), and is associated with the Large seal script. Or, the Cang Jie Pian (倉頡篇 "Compilation by Cang Jie"), named after the legendary inventor of writing, was edited by Li Si, and helped to standardize the Small seal script during the Qin Dynasty. Chinese classic texts or Chinese canonical texts are the classical literature in Chinese culture that are considered to be the best or the most valuable. ... King Xuan of Zhou (before 841 BC - 781 BC) (ch. ... Cangjie or Cang Jie (仓颉) is a fabled and legendary figure from ancient China, claimed to be the Yellow Emperors official historian, and the inventor of the Chinese character. ... Li Si (Chinese: 李斯; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Li Ssu) (ca. ... Engraving referring to standard weights for balance Xiaozhuan (小篆), or Hsiao-chuan was the title of a work on Chinese characters compiled by Li Si during the reign of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. ... The Qin Dynasty (Chinese: 秦朝; Pinyin: Qín Cháo; Wade-Giles: Chin Chao) (221 BC - 206 BC) was preceded by the Zhou Dynasty and followed by the Han Dynasty in China. ...

The collation or lexicographical ordering of dictionaries depends upon writing systems. For a language written in an alphabet or syllabary, dictionaries are usually ordered alphabetically. But for a language like Chinese that is written with characters or logographs, how can a dictionary be internally arranged? The Chinese developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations. In textual criticism and bibliography, collation is the reading of two (or more) texts side-by-side in order to note their differences. ... A writing system, also called a script, is used to visually record a language with symbols. ... Alphabet is the current Good Article Collaboration of the week! Please help to improve this article to the highest of standards. ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... A Chinese logogram, which is also an ideogram. ...

Semantically organized dictionaries

The first system of dictionary organization is by semantic categories. The circa 3rd century BCE Erya (爾雅 "Approaching Correctness") is oldest extant Chinese dictionary, and scholarship reveals that it is a pre-Qin compilation of glosses to classical texts. It contains lists of synonyms arranged into 19 semantic categories (e.g., "Explaining Plants," "Explaining Trees"). The Han Dynasty dictionary Xiao Erya (小爾雅 "Little Erya") reduces these 19 to 13 chapters. The early 3rd century CE Guangya (廣雅 "Expanded Erya"), from the Northern Wei Dynasty, followed the Erya's original 19 chapters. The circa 1080 CE Piya (埤雅 "Increased Erya"), from the Song Dynasty, has 8 semantically-based chapters of names for plants and animals. For a dictionary user wanting to look up a character, this arbitrary semantic system is inefficient unless one already knows, or can guess, the meaning. The Erya (爾雅) is a Chinese dictionary from before the first century. ... The Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Han Chau; 206 BC–AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. ... The Northern Wei Dynasty (北魏 386-534) is most noted for the unification of northern China in 440, it was also heavily involved in funding the arts and many antiques and art works from this period have survived. ... The Song Dynasty (Chinese: ) was a ruling dynasty in China from 960-1279. ...

Two other Han Dynasty lexicons are loosely organized by semantics. The 1st century CE Fangyan (方言 "Regional Speech") is the world's oldest known dialectal dictionary. The circa 200 CE Shiming (釋名 "Explaining Names") employs paranomastic glosses to define words.

Graphically organized dictionaries

The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic components or radicals. The famous 100-121 CE Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字 "Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters") arranged characters through a system of 540 bushou (部首 "section header") radicals. The 543 CE Yupian (玉篇 "Jade Chapters"), from the Liang Dynasty, rearranged them into 542. The 1615 CE Zihui (字彙 "Character Glossary"), edited by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚) during the Ming Dynasty, simplified the 540 Shuowen Jiezi radicals to 214. It also originated the "radical-stroke" scheme of ordering characters on the number of residual graphic strokes besides the radical. The 1627 Zhengzi tong (正字通 "Correct Character Mastery") by Zhang Zilie (張自烈) also used 214. The 1716 CE Kangxi Zidian (康熙字典 "Kangxi Dictionary"), compiled under the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, became the standard dictionary for Chinese characters, and popularized the system of 214 radicals. Owing to the relative efficiency of looking up a character in a radical-stroke dictionary, this system continues to be widely used in the present day. See radical for other uses of the term In mathematics, the n-th root or radical of the non-negative real number a, written as , is the unique non-negative real number b such that bn=a. ... a version of Shuowen Jiezi Shuōwén JiÄ›zì (說文解字, Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters) was the first Chinese character dictionary, compiled by XÇ” Shèn between 100 CE and 121 CE in Han Dynasty China. ... The Yupian (Chinese: ; Pinyin: Yùpiān; Wade-Giles: Yü-pien; Jade Chapters) is a circa 543 CE Chinese dictionary edited by Gu Yewang (顧野王; Ku Yeh-wang; 519-581) during the Liang Dynasty. ... Liang Dynasty (also: Leung in Cantonese,) 梁朝 (502-557) was the third of Southern dynasties in China, followed by the Chen Dynasty. ... The Zihui (Chinese: ; Pinyin: Zìhuì; Wade-Giles: Tzu Hui; literally character collection/categorization) was a 1615 Chinese dictionary, edited by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚) during the late Ming Dynasty. ... For other articles with similar names, see Ming. ... Outline of the character æ°¸, showing stroke order and direction. ... The Kangxi Dictionary The Kangxi Dictionary (Chinese: ; Pinyin: KāngxÄ« ZìdiÇŽn; Wade-Giles: Kang-hsi tzu-tien) was the standard Chinese dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. ... The Kangxi Emperor (Chinese: ; Pinyin: KāngxÄ«; Wade-Giles: Kang-hsi; May 4, 1654 – December 20, 1722) was the fourth Emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over all of China, from 1661 to 1722. ... The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: ; Pinyin: QÄ«ng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ching chao; Manchu: daicing gurun), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, is a Chinese term for the Empire of the Great Qing (Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: dàqÄ«ngguó), founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what...

Phonetically organized dictionaries

The third system of lexicographical ordering is by character pronunciation. A Chinese rime dictionary is based upon the concept of a rime table that phonologically charts characters by their syllable onset, syllable rime, and tones. This tradition of phonological tables may date back to the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The 601 CE Qieyun (切韻 "Cutting [Spelling] Rimes") from the Sui Dynasty became the Middle Chinese standard for how characters should be pronounced. During the Song Dynasty, it was expanded into the 1011 CE Guangyun (廣韻 "Expanded Rimes") and the 1037 CE Jiyun (集韻 "Collected Rimes"). The oldest extant rime tables also date from the Song Dynasty: the 1161 CE Qiyin lüe (七音略 "Seven Sounds Summary") and the 1203 CE Yunjing (韻鏡 "Rime Mirror"). The 1324 CE Zhongyuan Yinyun (中原音韻 "Phonology of the Central Plains") records standard pronunciations from the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, which are important in the phonological history of Mandarin. The clear problem with a phonetically arranged dictionary is that a user needs to know the pronunciation of a character in order to look it up. This rime dictionary arrangement was replaced by alphabetical systems of romanization. A rime dictionary or a rime book is a type of Chinese dictionary that was used in ancient times. ... Rime tables, as used in Chinese character dictionaries, show characters listed by their onsets, rimes, grades of rime, and tones, but not necessarily in that order. ... In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus. ... In the study of phonology in linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda. ... It has been suggested that Tonal language be merged into this article or section. ... This article is about China. ... Qieyun (Chinese 切韻) is a Chinese character rime dictionary, published in 601 AD during the Sui Dynasty. ... The Sui Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: suí cháo; 581-618) followed the Southern and Northern Dynasties and preceded the Tang Dynasty in China. ... Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... Guangyun (Chinese: 廣韻) is a rime dictionary. ... Jiyun (Chinese: 集韻) is a Chinese rime book published in 1037 during the Song Dynasty. ... Zhongyuan Yinyun (Chinese 中原音韵) is a rhyme book from the Yuan Dynasty compiled by Zhou Dequing (周德淸) in 1324. ... The Yuan Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: Yuáncháo; Mongolian: Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus) lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. ... Mandarin has a number of meanings: mandarin, a bureaucrat of Imperial China, and in the United Kingdom and Canada, by analogy, any government bureaucrat Mandarin, a group of dialects of spoken Chinese, or more specifically, its standardized dialect, Standard Mandarin Mandarin Airlines, a subsidiary of China Airlines mandarin duck, Aix...

While these traditional Chinese dictionaries focused upon the meanings and pronunciations of words in classical texts, they practically ignored the spoken language and vernacular literature.

Modern Chinese lexicography

The Kangxi Zidian served as the standard Chinese dictionary for generations, is still published and is now online. Contemporary lexicography is divisible between bilingual and monolingual Chinese dictionaries.

Chinese-English dictionaries

The foreigners who entered China in late Ming and Qing Dynasties needed dictionaries for different purposes than native speakers. Wanting to learn Chinese, they compiled the first grammars and bilingual dictionaries. Westerners adapted the Latin alphabet to represent Chinese pronunciation, and arranged their dictionaries accordingly.

Two Bible translators edited early Chinese dictionaries. The Scottish missionary Robert Morrison wrote Chinese-English and English-Chinese lexicons (1815-1823). The British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst wrote Hokkien dialect (1832) and Chinese-English (1842) dictionaries. Both were flawed in their representation of pronunciations, such as aspirated stops. The American philologist and diplomat Samuel Wells Williams applied the method of dialect comparison in his dictionary (1874), and refined distinctions in articulation. The word Bible refers to the canonical collections of sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity. ... Robert Morrison (Chinese: 馬禮遜; born January 5, 1782 in Bullers Green, near Morpeth, Northumberland; died August 1, 1834 in Canton; buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau) was a Scottish missionary, the first Protestant missionary in China. ... Walter Henry Medhurst (Chinese: 麥都思, 1796-1857), English Congregationalist missionary to China, was born in London and educated at St Pauls school. ... Hokkien can refer to: The Hokkien (dialect): a Chinese dialect, often called Minnan or Minnanhua (Southern Min), a member of the Min dialect branch, similar to Taiwanese A transliteration of the name of the Fujian province of China. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ...

The British diplomat and linguist Herbert Giles compiled a lexicon (1892, 1912) that Norman (1988:173) calls "the first truly adequate Chinese-English dictionary". It contained 13,848 characters and numerous compound expressions, with pronunciation based upon Beijing Mandarin, which it compared with nine southern dialects such as Hakka, Cantonese, and Min. Giles modified the Chinese romanization system of Thomas Francis Wade to create the Wade-Giles system, which was standard until 1979 when Pinyin was adopted. The American missionary Robert H. Mathews updated and condensed Giles for his (1931, 1943) Chinese-English dictionary, which was popular for decades. Herbert Allen Giles (December 8, 1845 - February 13, 1935) was a British linguist who modified a Mandarin Chinese Romanization system established by Thomas Wade earlier, resulting in the Wade-Giles Chinese transliteration system. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ... This article is on all of the Yue dialects. ... Min (閩方言 in pinyin: min3 fang1 yan2) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou, and Leizhou peninsula), Hainan, three counties in... Sir Thomas Francis Wade (August 25, 1818 - July 31, 1895) was a London-born British diplomat and Sinologist linguist who invented what was to become the Wade-Giles Romanization for Mandarin Chinese. ... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme...

Trained in American Structural linguistics, Yuen Ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang wrote a dictionary of colloquial Chinese (1947) that emphasized the spoken rather than the written language. Main entries were listed in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and they treated grammatical topics like free morphemes and bound morphemes. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Yuen Ren Chao (趙元任 Pinyin: Zhào Yuánrèn; WG: Chao Yüan-jen; Gwoyeu Romatzyh: Jaw Yuanren) (November 3, 1892 - February 25, 1982) was a Chinese phonologist and dialectologist who shaped Gwoyeu Romatzyh. ... Gwoyeu Romatzyh (Simplified Chinese: 国语罗马字; Traditional Chinese: 國語羅馬字; Pinyin: GuóyÇ” LuómÇŽzì), abbreviated GR, is a romanization (formerly used officially in the Republic of China) with complex spelling rules which allow for tonal distinctions (unlike most other Romanizations, which require additional diacritics or numerals). ... In linguistics, free morphemes are morphemes that can stand alone, unlike bound morphemes, which only occur as parts of words. ... Bound morphemes can only occur when attached to root morphemes. ...

The Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren wrote the seminal (1957) Grammata Serica Recensa with his reconstructed pronunciations for Middle Chinese and Old Chinese. Bernhard Karlgren (1889 - 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and eminent philologist, and the founder of Swedish sinology as a scholarly discipline. ... Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... Old Chinese (formerly called Archaic Chinese) (Simplified Chinese: 上古汉语; Traditional Chinese: 上古漢語; pinyin: ), refers to the Chinese spoken during the Zhou Dynasty (10th century BC – 256 BC). ...

Chinese lexicography advanced during the 1970s. The translator Lin Yutang wrote a semantically sophisticated dictionary (1972) that is now available online. The author Liang Shiqiu edited two full-scale dictionaries: Chinese-English (Liang and Fang 1971) with over 8,000 characters and 100,000 entries, and English-Chinese (Liang 1975) with over 160,000 entries. Lin Yutang, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Lin Yutang (林語堂, October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976) was a Chinese writer whose original works and translations of classic Chinese texts became very popular in the West. ...

The linguist and professor of Chinese, John DeFrancis edited a groundbreaking Chinese-English dictionary (1996) giving more than 196,000 entries alphabetically arranged in a single-sort pinyin order. John DeFrancis is a Chinese language professor emeritus and researcher at the University of Hawaii who wrote a number of Chinese instructional texts (his Readers series is particularly well regarded) in the 60s and 70s. ...

Chinese-Chinese dictionaries

When the Republic of China began in 1912, educators and scholars recognized the need to update the 1716 Kangxi Zidian. It was thoroughly revised in the (1915) Zhonghua Da Zidian (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"), which corrected over 4,000 Kangxi Zidian mistakes and added more than 1,000 new characters. Lu Erkui's (1915) Ci Yuan (辭源 "Sources of Words") was a groundbreaking effort in Chinese lexicography and can be considered the first cidian "word dictionary". Motto: None Anthem(s): National Anthem of the Republic of China Capital Taipei City (de facto) Nanjing (de jure)1 Largest city Taipei City Official language(s) Mandarin (GuóyÇ”) Government Semi-presidential system  - President Chen Shui-bian  - Vice President Annette Lu  - Premier Su Tseng-chang Establishment Xinhai Revolution   - Declared... The Zhonghua Da Zidian (Chinese: ; Pinyin: Zhōnghuá dà zìdiÇŽn; Wade-Giles: Chung-hua ta tzu-tien; Comprehensive Chinese character dictionary) was an unabridged Chinese dictionary of characters published in 1915. ...

Shu Xincheng's (1936) Cihai (辭海 "Sea of Words") was a comprehensive dictionary of characters and expressions, and provided near-encyclopedic coverage in fields like science, philosophy, history. The Cihai remains a popular dictionary and has been frequently revised.

The (1937) Guoyu cidian (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language") was a four-volume dictionary of words, designed to standardize modern pronunciation. The main entries were characters listed phonologically by Zhuyin Fuhao and Gwoyeu Romatzyh. For example, the title in these systems is ㄍㄨㄛㄩ ㄘㄉ一ㄢ and Gwoyeu tsyrdean. Zhùyīn Fúhào (注音符號), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) for the first four syllables of these Chinese phonetic symbols, is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China (based on...

Wei Jiangong's (1953) Xinhua Zidian (新华字典 "New China Character Dictionary") is a pocket-sized reference, alphabetically arranged by pinyin. It is the world's most popular dictionary, and the 10th edition was published in 2004. 2004 10th edition Xinhua zidian The XÄ«nhuá zìdiÇŽn (Chinese: , literally new China character dictionary) is the most popular modern Chinese language reference work. ...

Lu Shuxiang's (1973) Xiandai Hanyu cidian (现代汉语词典 "Contemporary Chinese Dictionary") is a middle-sized dictionary of words. It is arranged by characters, alphabetized by pinyin, which list compounds and phrases, with a total 56,000 entries (expanded to 65,000 in the 2005 edition). Both the Xinhua zidian and the Xiandai Hanyu cidian followed a simplified scheme of 189 radicals.

Two outstanding achievements in contemporary Chinese lexicography are the (1986-93) Hanyu Da Cidian ("Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Words") with over 370,000 word and phrase entries listed under 23,000 different characters; and the (1986-89) Hanyu Da Zidian ("Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters") with 54,678 head entries for characters. They both use a system of 200 radicals. The Hanyu Da Zidian (Chinese: ; pinyin: Hànyǔ dà zìdiǎn; literally Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary) is one of the best available reference works on Chinese characters. ...

In recent years, the computerization of Chinese has allowed lexicographers to create dianzi cidian (電子詞典/电子词典 "electronic dictionaries") usable on computers, PDAs, etc. On the one hand, there are proprietary systems like Wenlin Software for learning Chinese. On the other, there are free dictionaries available online. Paul Denisowski started the volunteer CEDICT (Chinese-English dictionary) project in 1997, and it grew into a standard reference. Many Internet dictionaries of Chinese are based on CEDICT, and it is included in the Unihan Database. The CEDICT project was started by Paul Denisowski in 1997 with the aim to provide a complete Chinese to English dictionary with pronunciation in pinyin for the Chinese characters. ... The Unihan Database is an online database which aims to provide information about each Han character of the Universal Character Set. ...

References

• Chao, Yuen Ren and Yang, Lien-sheng, eds. Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1947. ISBN 0674123506
• DeFrancis, John, ed. The ABC [Alphabetically Based Computerized] Chinese-English Dictionary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1996. ISBN 0-8248-2766-X
• Giles, Herbert A., ed. A Chinese-English Dictionary. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1892. 2nd. ed. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1912.
• Hanyu da zidian bianji weiyuanhui 汉语大字典编辑委员会, eds. Hanyu da zidian (汉语大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters"). 8 vols. Wuhan: Hubei cishu chubanshe. 1986-1989.
• Karlgren, Bernhard, ed. Grammata Serica Recensa. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. 1957.
• Liang Shiqiu [Liang Shih-chiu] 梁實秋, ed. Far East English-Chinese Dictionary. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1975. ISBN 9576120411
• Liang Shiqiu and Zhang Fangjie [Chang Fang-chieh] 張芳杰, eds. Far East Chinese-English Dictionary. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1971. ISBN 9576124638
• Lin Yutang, ed. Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1972.
• Lu Erkui 陸爾奎, ed. Ciyuan (辭源 "Sources of Words"). Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1915. Rev. ed. 1939.
• Lu Shuxiang 吕叔湘, ed. Xiandai Hanyu cidian (现代汉语词典 "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1973. ISBN 7100034779
• Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風, ed. Hanyu da cidian (汉语大词典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese"). 12 vols. Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe. 1986-1994. ISBN 7543200139
• Mathews, Robert H., ed. Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. 1931. Rev. American ed. 1943. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Medhurst, Walter, ed. A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language: According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms: Containing about 12,000 Characters Macao: East India Company. 1832. Reprint Ganesha. 2006. ISBN 1-86210-067-5
• Medhurst, Walter, ed. Chinese and English dictionary: Containing all the words in the Chinese imperial dictionary, arranged according to the radicals. Batavia: Parapattan. 1842.
• Morrison, Robert, ed. A dictionary of the Chinese language. Macao: East India Company. 1815-1823. Part 1: Chinese and English arranged according to the radicals; Part 2: Chinese and English arranged alphabetically; Part 3: English and Chinese.
• Norman, Jerry. Chinese. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1988. ISBN 052122809
• Shu Xincheng 舒新城, ed. Cihai (辭海 "Sea of Words"). 3 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1936.
• Wei Jiangong魏建功, ed. Xinhua zidian (新华字典 "New China Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1953. 10th rev. ed. Beijing: Commercial Press. 2004. ISBN 7-100-03931-2
• Williams, Samuel, ed. A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, arranged according to the Wu-fang yuan yin, with the pronunciation of the characters as heard in Peking, Canton, Amoy and Shanghai. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. 1874. Reprint Ganesha. 2001. ISBN 1862100217
• Xu Yuan'gao 徐元誥, ed. Zhongwen Da Zidian (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"). 4 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1915.
• Yang, Paul Fu-mien. Chinese Lexicology and Lexicography: A Selected and Classified Bibliography. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 1985. ISBN 962-201-312-0
• Zhongguo cidian bianzuanchu 中國辭典編纂處, eds. Guoyu cidian (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language"). 8 vols. Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1937.

Online Chinese dictionaries

• CEDICT: Chinese-English Dictionary, Mandarintools
• Chinese Characters Dictionary Web, Rick Harbaugh
• Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, Chinese University of Hong Kong
• 國語辭典, Guoyu cidian (in Chinese)
• 康熙字典網上版, Kangxi zidian (in Chinese)

External links

• A brief history of Chinese lexicons, Dylan W.H. Sung
• Chinese dictionaries, Open Directory Project
• Research Tools for Chinese Studies - 2. Dictionaries, Fabrizio Pregadio
• Several Important Chinese Dictionaries, ChinaCulture
• Word Lists and Online Glossaries/Dictionaries, Marjorie Chan's ChinaLinks

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