Introducing English Linguistics

part, take a long time.” The Collins Cobuild Dictionary therefore makes note of
collocations such these in its definitions and in the illustrative examples
that it includes.
Because dictionaries use words to define words, lexicographers have to
make sure that their readership fully understands the words that are used
in definitions. In learner dictionaries, this is in part controlled by the num-
ber of words upon which definitions are based. The Collins Cobuild Dictionary,
a learner dictionary, bases its definitions on 2,500–3,000 words (Moon 2007:
171), largely because the audience for such a dictionary (non-native speak-
ers) requires a more restricted vocabulary than native speakers. But clarity
of definition is equally important for dictionaries in general. Landau (2001:
160) argues that “readers [of monolingual dictionaries] have a right to
expect that if they do not know the meaning of a word used in the defini-
tion, they can look that word up and find it defined.” But fulfilling this cri-
terion can be difficult, especially for technical vocabulary, which appears
not just in specialized dictionaries but general-purpose dictionaries as well.
Webster’s Third New International defines the computer term byte as:
a unit of computer information or data-storage capacity that consists of
a group of eight bits and that is used especially to represent an alphanu-
meric character.
For the technological novice, this definition contains words – bits, alphanu-
meric character – that will be unfamiliar. Of course, these individual words
themselves could be looked up elsewhere in the dictionary, but the will-
ingness to do this will vary considerably from user to user.
Lexicographers follow other conventions in their definitions. The form
of definitions for different parts of speech will vary: nouns will be defined
in noun phrases, adjectives in set phrases (e.g. able to, exhibiting, of, denot-
ing), and verbs in to- infinitive clauses (Landau 2001: 171–7). Thus, accord-
ing to the OED, The noun cup is a “drinking vessel”; the adjective small
refers to something/someone “Of relatively little girth or circumference”;
the verb talk involves verbal utterances whose purpose is “To convey or
exchange ideas, thoughts, information, etc. by means of speech.” Some
learner dictionaries depart from this practice by defining all words in
complete sentences. The adjective fair in the Collins Cobuild Dictionary is
defined in the sentence “when it is fair, the weather is pleasant, dry and
fine” (quoted in Moon 2007: 170).
166
INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

---

Because most modern dictionaries are now based on corpora, many of
these dictionaries order definitions of words by frequency, with the most
frequent definitions first followed by progressively less frequent definitions.
This practice has resulted in changes in the ordering of definitions from ear-
lier dictionaries. For instance, Moon (2007: 163–5) demonstrates that earlier
dictionaries tended to include the more concrete definition of impact (‘the
force of something hitting something else’) before the more abstract mean-
ing (‘the effect that something has on something else’). However, in terms
of frequency, the abstract meaning is more common than the concrete
meaning. Thus, by ordering meanings by frequency, dictionaries give users
a more accurate depiction of which definition predominates.
Corpora have also enabled lexicographers to include illustrative quota-
tions that are not invented but taken from real sources. Of course, this
practice can be found as early as Samuel Johnson’s 1755 A Dictionary of the
English Language and was a key characteristic of the OED. But in these dic-
tionaries, quotations had to be collected by hand, whereas with corpora,
they can be automatically extracted. Illustrative quotations are important
because they provide dictionary users with an example of how a word is
used in a real context.
Lexicographers follow other principles in defining words. They attempt
to keep definitions brief. They avoid circularity in their definitions so that
if, for instance, “a lynx is defined as ‘a bobcat’, a bobcat is not defined as ‘a
lynx’” (Landau 2001: 158). Some lexicographers strive for substitutability
in their definitions: the idea that the definition for a given word should
be able to substitute for the word itself. If a dog is defined as a four-legged
canine, then one ought to be able to say either I have a new dog or I have a
new four-legged canine. Of course, as most lexicographers will acknowledge,
not all words (particularly function words like a or by) can be defined in a
manner that satisfies this principle.
But whichever principle of definition a lexicographer follows, the goal
is to present definitions to users of dictionaries that provide clear defini-
tions of previously unknown words.