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Your word for today is: dictionary, n. and adj.
dictionary, n. and adj.
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈdɪkʃnˌ(ə)ri/, /ˈdɪkʃən(ə)ri/, U.S. /ˈdɪkʃəˌnɛri/
Forms: α. lME dixionare; Sc. pre-17 dictionare, pre-17 dictonar transmission error, pre-17 17 dictioner, pre-17 17– dictionar, 19– dickshinir, 19– dictionar'. β. 15 dictionarye, 15 dyctyonarye, 15–16 dictionarie, 15–16 (18– chiefly regional and nonstandard) dixionary, 15– dictionary, 16 dixcionarie, 16 dixionarie, 16 dixionray, 16 dixonarie, 18 dic'snary nonstandard.
Etymology: < post-classical Latin dictionarius wordbook, collection of phrases (c1220 as the name of a textbook for learners of Latin; also dictionarium (neuter) as the name of an alphabetized encyclopedic guide to the Vulgate Bible (late 14th cent.); from 15th cent. in both forms in sense 'alphabetized wordbook') < classical Latin dictiōn-, dictiōdiction n. + -ārius-ary suffix1. Compare Middle French, French dictionnaire (1499 as dictionaire, glossing Latin dictionarium), Spanish diccionario (c1400 as dicionario, denoting a specific work), Portuguese dicionário (1563), Italian dizionario (a1555). Compare also Dutch †dictionarium (1511), dictionaire (1552), †dictionaris (1650), German †Diktionarium (c1530), Dictionär (early 18th cent., now arch.): the usual words in modern use are Dutch woordenboek, German Wörterbuch (see wordbook n.). Compare vocabulary n., nomenclator n., wordbook n., lexicon n., and foreign-language forms cited at those entries.
The post-classical Latin word dictionarius appears to have been coined by the English-born Parisian teacher John of Garland as a name for one of his elementary Latin textbooks, in which lexical items are grouped thematically in 84 short paragraphs. The book was meant as a guide to Latin composition, and so an introduction probably by John and certainly of the 13th cent. explains that the book 'Dictionarius dicitur, non ab unica dictione i[d est] unico vocabulo, immo a dictione large sumpta i[d est] a sermone' (is called Dictionarius, not from dictio in the sense 'single word' but from dictio in the sense 'connected speech'): see T. Hunt Teaching & Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Cent. England (1991) 1:193. In classical Latin the suffix -ārius-ary suffix1 more normally formed adjectives, or nouns denoting kinds of person, than nouns denoting kinds of thing (but compare commentāriuscommentary n.), and this explains why J. A. H. Murray (in N.E.D. and The Evolution of English Lexicography (1900) 18) postulated the derivation of the noun from an adjective dictionarius or a phrase dictionarius liber; however, there seems to be no evidence for the currency of either before 1220, and the care with which the noun dictionarius is explained in the introduction to John of Garland's work suggests a fresh coinage rather than the functional shift of an existing word.
Although dictionarius was not taken up as the name of a kind of book immediately after its use by John of Garland, it was used in the later 14th cent. (in the form dictionarium) as the name of Pierre Bersuire's alphabetically ordered encyclopedic guide to the interpretation of words in the Vulgate, and then came to be used with the sense 'alphabetized wordbook' from the 15th cent. onwards, in both forms, and both in the titles of reference works and as a common noun. Its currency may have been broadened by the high prestige of Robert Estienne's Dictionarium, seu latinae linguae thesaurus (editions of 1531, 1536, 1543) and the wide influence of his Dictionarium latino-gallicum (1538) and Dictionaire Francoislatin (1539).
A. n.
1.
a. A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary), giving for each word its typical spelling, an explanation of its meaning or meanings, and often other information, such as pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, equivalents in other languages, and illustrative examples. Cf. lexicon n., wordbook n.
The earliest books to be referred to as dictionaries in English were those in which the meanings of the words of one language or dialect were given in another (or, in a polyglot dictionary, in two or more languages). Dictionaries (thus named) of this type began to appear in England during the 16th cent., initially of Latin, later of modern languages (see quots. 1538 at β. , 1547 at β. respectively), although of course such works had been compiled and disseminated under other names long before this (see etymology for information about cognate words in other European languages). During the 17th cent. dictionary came also to be used of works giving explanations in English of 'hard words', of which the earliest to be printed was Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall of 1604; the earliest to include the word dictionary in the title was Henry Cockeram's of 1623. Later dictionaries extended the range of words covered to include more of the common words of the language.
The word has not been widely used of books in which the words are not arranged alphabetically, although one such book, an English-Latin vocabulary for schoolchildren in which the words were entered under subject headings, was issued by John Withals in 1553 under the title 'A shorte dictionarie for yonge begynners' and went through numerous editions during the 16th and 17th centuries. See also thesaurus n.2.
For works dealing with the vocabulary of a particular text or dialect glossary is now more commonly used; cf. also vocabulary n.1a.
collegiate, desk, learner's, rhyming dictionary, etc.: see the first element.
α.
c1480 Medulla Gram. (Pepys) f. 32v,Dixionari[us],‥an[gli]ce Dixionar[e].
1574 Accts. Treasurer Scotl. f. 348,[Ane] dict[i]onar in latene and frence.
1580 Edinb. Test. VIII. f. 109, in Dict. Older Sc. Tongue at Dictionar(e,Certane bukes bund & vnbund, sik as ane dictionar in latyne & inglis.
1643 in J. Stuart Extracts Council Reg. Aberdeen (1872) II. 9The paines takin be Mr John Row‥for setting furth ane Hebrew dictionar, and dedicating the same to the counsell.
1673 in W. Fraser Mem. Montgomeries (1859) I. 332For a Latin and English dictionar.
1746 R. Forbes Lyon in Mourning (1895) II. 294Youl easyly percive by our epistles that ther is neither grammer, Dictioner, nor spelling books in this venerabl Castle.
1773 R. Fergusson Poems (1925) 56Mind ye what Sam, the lying loun! Has in his Dictionar laid down?
1916 J. J. H. Burgess Rasmie's Smaa Murr 19 Mar.,Mony a göd wird never wins i da dictionar.
1996 S. Blackhall Wittgenstein's Web iv,I dinna recollect ae relation, stoppin mid-ben a spikk an wheekin oot a dictionar tae see gin a wird wis richt standart Scots or nae!
β.
1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. OOOiiv,And so Peter Bercharius in his dictionary describeth it.
1534 N. Udall in tr. Terence Floures for Latine Spekynge f. 68v,The Dictionaries take adulat there, for lambit or bibit.
1538 (title),The Dictionary of syr Thomas Eliot knyght. [In ed. 2 (1542) the title was altered to 'Bibliotheca Eliotæ. Eliotis Librarie.' This was retained in subsequent editions, although the title-page of Thomas Cooper's revision of 1548 refers to it as 'This dictionarie now newly imprinted'; in the edition of 1552 the Latin title was retained, but the English subtitle was changed to 'Eliotes Dictionarie'.]
1547 W. Salesbury (title),A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as will spedly learne the englyshe tongue.
1553 J. Withals Shorte Dict. Colophon,Thus endeth this Dictionarie, very necessary for children: compiled by J. Withals.
1562 Thorpe Churchwardens' Bks. in E. Oldfield Topogr. & Hist. Acct. Wainfleet (1829) 299Recd‥, A Dixionary of Elliotts being geven by Sr John Scott.
a1568 R. Ascham Scholemaster (1570) i. f. 2,As the Grammer booke be euer in the Scholers hand, and also vsed of him, as a Dictionarie, for euerie present vse.
1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 55Maister Heskins, fareth as hee were halfe madde, sending vs to the Vocabularies, Calepines, and Dictionaries, for the signification of this worde represento.
1609 T. Dekker Guls Horne-bk. 39A whole Dictionary cannot afford more words to set downe notes what Dialologues [sic] you are to maintaine whilest you are Doctor of the Chaire there [sc. at the barber's].
1623 H. Cockeram (title)The English dictionarie: or an interpreter of hard English words.
1656 T. Blount (title)Glossographia or a dictionary interpreting all such hard words‥as are now used in our refined English tongue.
1665 R. Boyle Occas. Refl. v. vii. sig. Ll4v,A man must have‥learn'd an Hebrew Grammar, and turn'd over Buxtorf's, Schindler's, and other Dictionaries.
1718 R. Johnson Grammatical Comm. Pref.,What time was spent in turning over Dictionaries and Phraseologies to assure the author of doubtful constructions.
1752 H. Fielding Amelia I. iii. viii. 239All his Words are not to be found in a Dictionary.
1755 Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Pref. ⁋3,I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary of the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected.
1815 Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci. 3 505This verb [sc. parade] is not in the English dictionaries, and I do not recollect hearing it used by Englishmen.
1857 R. C. Trench Deficiencies Eng. Dict. 4A Dictionary, according to that idea of it which seems to be alone capable of being logically maintained, is an inventory of the language.
1872 'M. Twain' Roughing It xviii. 144We were glad‥that the dictionary was along, because we never could have found language to tell how glad we were, in any sort of dictionary but an unabridged one with pictures in it.
1927 Engl. Jrnl. 16 633Sitting down with the student over his English dictionary and going through the pronunciation key with him.
1960 W. Naylor Silver Birch Anthol. 8,I know how you have to polish and repolish, alter words, delete others, change sentences, consult the dictionary and the thesaurus, before you are satisfied.
1981 Verbatim 7 iii. 20/2Collectors are needed to find quotations for a new dictionary of American slang.
2006 Time Out N.Y. 26 Oct. 35/1,I felt like I needed a cowboy-English dictionary to read the menu.
b. In extended use: a book of information or reference on any subject in which the entries are arranged alphabetically; an alphabetical encyclopedia.
1576 W. Lambard Perambulation Kent Ded. sig. ¶¶,To doe as muche for all the rest of the Counties of this Realme generally, as he hathe done for this Countie specially (toward whiche I knowe‥he hath alredy vnder the title of a Topographical dictionarie gathered together greate store of very good matter).
1632 P. Massinger Emperour of East i. ii. sig. C3,I haue composde a Dictionary, in which He is instructed, how, when, and to whom To be proud or humble.
1642 T. Fuller Holy State iii. iv. 160'Tis but a dull Dutch fashion, their Albus Amicorum, to make a dictionary of their friends names.
1712 J. Addison Spectator No. 499. ¶2The Story‥which I have since found related in my Historical Dictionary.
1790 (title)Bell's new Pantheon, or historical dictionary of gods, demi-gods, heroes, and fabulous personages of antiquity.
1856 J. W. Griffith & A. Henfrey (title)The micrographic dictionary; a guide to the examination and investigation of the structure and nature of microscopic objects.
1872 J. Morley Voltaire vi. 283Minutiæ ought to be collected by annalists, or in some kind of dictionaries where one might find them at need.
1926 Times 12 Oct. 17/6Salaino deserves something more than the few lines now devoted to him in the biographical dictionaries.
1975 Amer. Jrnl. Nursing 75 87/1Most teachers relied on the child's parents, encyclopedias, or medical dictionaries for the information they needed.
2005 I. McDonald River of Gods v. 48Extra-solar planetary systems had been popping out of the big black faster than the taxonomists could thumb through their dictionaries of mythology and fable for names.
c. Computing. A list stored in and used by a computer; spec. (a) a list of words recognized by an application such as a word processor, against which text or code can be checked; (b) a list of the contents of a database.
In quot. 1954, a conventional dictionary stored electronically.
[1954 Sci. Monthly Aug. 121/2The magnetic drum of the computer was used for holding the dictionary.]
1957 IBM Jrnl. Res. & Devel. 1 150/1The dictionary for language translation by a computer‥and many other problems which are essentially table look-up require a system like those described.
1964 Proc. AFIPS Conf. 26 353/1A separate dictionary is maintained for each disk area. Each dictionary entry contains the following information for each subroutine within that area: 1. subroutine name. 2. disk address‥. 3. length‥. 4. date.
1975 J. Martin Computer Data-base Organization xxxiii. 481Each entry in the dictionary points to an occurrence list giving every occurrence in the document file of the word in question.
1984 J. Hilton Choosing & using your Home Computer 115/2Some sophisticated word processing programs can perform useful extra functions. The automatic dictionary, or spelling checker, is among the most popular inclusions.
1992 UnixWorld Apr. 125/3The software is built on the concept of ad-hoc queries that can be made after a database-specific data dictionary has been defined by the administrator.
2006 Wired Dec. 212/1Using the dictionary, the software employs a process called flooding to generate and store all possible English translations for the words in that chunk [of text].
2. With of or possessive. The collection of words used or understood by a particular person; vocabulary. Freq. fig., esp. in negative contexts, suggesting that something is contrary to a person's principles or character rather than being actually incomprehensible (esp. in not in a person's dictionary).
1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 58If I may vse that tearme vnder correction of M. Heskins dictionarie.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica i. x. 41Not only in the dictionary of man, but the subtiler vocabulary of Satan.
1726 Swift Gulliver II. iii. ii. 24,I much enlarged my Dictionary; and when I went next to Court, was able to understand many things the King spoke.
1776 T. Francklin Contract i. i. 22Precipitate! I don't know what you call precipitate; it's a d——n'd hard word, by the bye, and not in my dictionary.
1837 P. S. Du Ponceau Let. 29 July in J. D'Homergue Silk Culturist's Man. (1839) 362It is the American character, drawn to the life. The word impossible is not in their dictionary.
1845 W. A. Caruthers Knights of Horse-shoe ii. xxix. 242'Are you going to retire to the shades of private life?' 'Jist exactly the very words Governor, only they wer'nt no where in my dictionary.'
1908 E. Walter Easiest Way i. i. 19Just make this horse for a minute. Hurry is not in his dictionary.
2007 I. R. Contento Nutrition Educ. xvii. 450They want jobs that involve individual creativity. Denial is not in their dictionary.
3. fig. A person or thing regarded as a repository or compendium of information.
walking dictionary: see walking adj.6b.
1734 tr. C. Rollin Method of teaching & studying Belles Lettres I. iii. 182All this cannot be done, but by the explication of authors, who are a kind of living dictionary, and speaking grammar.
1774 O. Goldsmith Hist. Earth I. Pref. p. vi,A system may be considered as a dictionary in the study of nature.
1837 R. W. Emerson Oration before Phi Beta Kappa Soc. 14Life is our dictionary.
1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 180Burnet was eminently qualified to be of use as a living dictionary of British affairs.
1923 Metrop. Mus. Art Bull. 18 274/2Father Francesco seems to have been a living dictionary of such classical lore as was then available.
2003 Time Out (Nexis) 12 Feb. 125She's an absolute dictionary about Takemitsu.
4. to have swallowed a (or the) dictionary: (originally in similative contexts) to use long or obscure words in speech, esp. excessively or unnecessarily; to speak grandiloquently or bombastically.
[1680 R. L'Estrange Citt & Bumpkin II. 31If you had him but one half-hour upon the Talking-Pin, you'd swear that he had swallow'd Calepines Dictionary whole, and spew'd it up again.]
1829 G. Griffin Collegians I. v. 40Why then I seen a schoolmaster westwards that had as much Latin and English as if he had swallowed a dictionary.
1853 G. E. Jewsbury Hist. Adopted Child 226What has come over the lady all at once, that she speaks so grand, as if she had just swallowed a dictionary.
1858 H. A. Reid Harp of West 39In contempt of a sarcasm of the author's school-fellows, that he had 'swallowed the Dictionary'.
1934 'G. Orwell' Burmese Days ii. 29Have you swallowed a dictionary?‥ We shall have to sack this fellow if he gets to talk English too well.
1966 'M. Torrie' Heavy as Lead x. 124'The whole point is that my Society deprecates, as much as you do.‥' The voices began again, 'Aw, cut it out!' 'Put a sock in it!' ''Ev've swallered the dictionary!'
2001 I. McEwan in Granta Spring 29'Divagation was nice. Where d'you get that one?''He swallowed a fucking dictionary,' Corporal Nettle said proudly.
†B. adj.
Characteristic or suggestive of a dictionary (in quot. 1596 app. with reference to readiness with words). Obs. rare.
1596 T. Nashe Haue with you to Saffron-Walden sig. N4v,To so Dictionarie a custome it was grown with him, that‥he would extempore in that kinde of verse runne vppon mens hearts and womens hearts all the night long.
Compounds
C1. a. General attrib.
a1586 Sir P. Sidney Astrophel & Stella (1591) 7You that doe dictionary method bring Into your rymes, running in ratling rowes.
1721 Reasonableness Orthodox & Arian Believing 25Were it so, the Dispute would be wholly Grammatical, and nothing but Dictionary Work.
1817 M. Edgeworth Love & Law i. iii, in Comic Dramas 36Honor. To shut the door after me when I'd come into a room. Bloom.When I'd come—now that's not dic'snary English.
1830 J. Galt Lawrie Todd III. vii. iv. 41Miss Beeny was an endless woman with her dictionary phraseology.
1837 Mill in London & Westm. Rev. 27 19A few phrases,‥by adding up the dictionary meanings of which, we may hunt out a few qualities.
1854 W. C. Roscoe in Prospective Rev. 10 398[Shakespeare] leaves his meaning to rest in great measure on the atmosphere that hangs about his language, rather than on its dictionary meaning and grammatical construction.
1879 J. A. H. Murray in N.E.D. (1903) at Pigeon-hole v.,I had proposed to pigeon-hole the walls of the drawing-room for the reception of the dictionary material.
1896 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 17 126The next dictionary entry‥is indirect, in the name pōhon kasuāri, 'cassowary tree'.
1929 C. I. Dodd Apples & Quinces ii. iv. 146It was over the Dictionary work that Amanda made the acquaintance of Mr. Jasper Stafford.
1969 Poetry Rev. 60 274A text derived from traditional language by replacing each word by its dictionary definition.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 30 May a23/2'Elite' and 'elitist' do not, in a dictionary sense, mean the same thing.
b. Objective, as dictionary writer, dictionary writing, etc.
1742 Pope New Dunciad 220 (note)The first [Suidas] a Dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words.
1759 O. Goldsmith Pres. State Polite Learning ii,Dictionary writing was at that time much in fashion.
1805 F. Reynolds Blind Bargain iv. 60New meaning! why you rascal, do you aspire to the dignity of dictionary writer?
1889 Daily News 8 June,Authors will take refuge in odd, unholy adventures in unheard of ways. They will be dictionary readers, like Rossetti, Gautier, and others.
1956 D. J. Lloyd & H. R. Warfel Amer. Eng. in its Cultural Setting ii. ix. 135It doesn't take a dictionary writer to think of verbs in English that do not express action.
1991 Internat. Jrnl. Lexicogr. 4 3The monotransitive and intransitive uses of the verb play will pose no problems for the average dictionary user.
2006 New Scientist 21 Oct. 62/3Is it only dictionary compilers who use copyright traps?
c. Instrumental, as dictionary-tutored adj., etc.
C2. 1632 J. Hayward tr. G. F. Biondi Eromena A iv,I would not‥be taken (or rather mistaken) for a Dictionary-tutred Linguist.
1889 Olean (N.Y.) Democrat (Electronic text) 5 Dec.,The dictionary taught foreigner‥remarked, 'Youar-r-e one gr-r-eat liar-r; I spik not ze French at all, never.'
1958 L. Roth Beyond My Worth xii. 251In my faltering, dictionary-learned Spanish, I said, 'Buenos dias. Mucho gusto.'
1997 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 20 Nov. 11/4Upon deciding to come to America she had dug out the address, writing this time in laborious, dictionary-assisted English.
dictionary attack n. Computing an attempt to gain illicit access to a network or system by using a large set of words to generate potential passwords.
1988 Network World 14 Nov. 6/2The worm used a '*dictionary attack' to gain access to the processors. Unix 4·3 contains a dictionary the worm could scan, trying each word as a password and counting on the likelihood that many users would have a proper word as a password.
1994 Washington Post (Nexis) 17 Feb. b11Many systems require‥that passwords include such keyboard characters as asterisks or ampersands so they are not real words. This makes it harder for outsiders to launch 'dictionary attacks'.
2008 B. Hamilton ADO.NET 3·5 Cookbk. (ed. 2) vi. 418To thwart the dictionary attack, a random string referred to as salt is concatenated with the original password.
dictionary catalogue n. a library catalogue in which the entries are arranged in a single alphabetical sequence, regardless of their type (author, title, series, etc.).
1869 C. A. Cutter in N. Amer. Rev. Jan. 116Experience shows, that, with all the simplicity of a '*dictionary' catalogue, the public have to be taught how to use it.
1915 Eng. Jrnl. 4 532We listened to a little talk about the Dictionary Catalogue: how it differs from an index; how the system of classification under a specific subject is followed.
2005 S. W. Green & D. J. Ernest in Information Sources Polit. Sci. (ed. 5) vii. 382This dictionary catalog is culled from the holdings of the research libraries of the New York Public Library‥and the Library of Congress. All entries are interfiled in one alphabetical sequence, typical of dictionary catalog formats.
dictionary-maker n. a lexicographer.
1567 T. Stapleton Counterblast iii. xxv. f. 322v,Neither therin wil I vse any peremptory challenge, but am content to stand to the iudgment of your nigh neighbours in the famous schole of Winchester, or if ye wil, of M. Cooper the *dictionary maker, better acquaynted with these matters, then perchaunce your self are.
1726 Swift Gulliver II. iv. xii. 187Writers of Travels, like Dictionary-Makers, are sunk into Oblivion by the Weight and Bulk of those who come after, and therefore lie uppermost.
1882 E. A. Freeman in Longman's Mag. 1 97Did anybody, even a dictionary-maker, really fancy that the last three letters of 'neighbour' had anything in common with the last three letters of 'honour'?
1998 S. Winchester Surgeon of Crowthorne v. 89The achievements of the great dictionary-makers of England's seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were prodigious indeed.
dictionary-making n. lexicography.
1668 Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. Ded. sig. A iij,This Work of *Dictionary-making, for the polishing of their Language.
1860 O. W. Holmes Professor at Breakfast-table ii. 40The language will shape itself by larger forces than phonography and dictionary-making.
2000 N. S. Baron Alphabet to Email (2001) iv. 104The saga of English orthography hasn't been quite as radical as that of dictionary-making, though their earlier histories were both tenuous.
dictionary-monger n. a lexicographer; a person who has dealings with dictionaries.
1758 J. Reed Madrigal & Trulletta i. i. 3,I cannot‥forbear taking notice of the negligence of our *dictionary-mongers, in omitting the explanation of the word intire; or, as it is frequently written, entire, in the sense I have now used it.
1818 M. R. Mitford in A. G. L'Estrange Life M. R. Mitford (1870) II. 27After the fashion of certain dictionary-mongers who ring the changes upon two words.
2008 J. Garth in S. Caldecott & T. Honegger Tolkien's Lord of Rings 25Tolkien was already an inveterate dictionary-monger; his sole contribution to Exeter's undergraduate suggestions book was for the purchase of 'a good English dictionary'.
dictionary order n. the order in which items are arranged in a conventional dictionary; alphabetical order.
1767 Rules reading Galic Lang. 9 in J. Stuart & J. Stuart tr. Tiomnadh Nuadh,The immutable consonants l, n, r, when initials of words in their natural or *dictionary order, as also when joined with another consonant, have generally a soft double or liquid sound.
1872 Times 2 May 9/6The original wills‥have been arranged‥in unbroken sequence and in dictionary order, so as to be self-indexing.
2002 R. M. Davidson Indian Esoteric Buddhism 419Indic sources are arranged according to the Sanskrit alphabet, with Tibetan titles for which there is no Indic equivalent inserted in Tibetan dictionary order.
dictionary-proof adj. rare †(a) (app.) of proven ability through having compiled a dictionary (obs. nonce-use); (b) against which the use of a dictionary is ineffective.
1819 Sporting Mag. Dec. 122/2Grose too, with all his professional knowledge of slang, and who was even *dictionary-proof upon this subject.
1871 'P. Ludlow' Red Shanty Boys (1884) xviii. 334Jonas plied them with the longest and toughest words he could find, till it seemed as if they were dictionary proof.
1894 Engineering Mag. Aug. 737/1If they are case-hardened and dictionary-proof they go calmly on gathering in clients, gaining important pieces of work, and waxing rich, regardless of the bellowings that are intended to efface them from off the earth.
1994 J. D. Williams & J. Edley Everything Scrabble (2009) xxiv. 327Peter Morris‥pulled a fast one against dictionary-proof Robert Felt.
dictionary word n. (a) a word which may be found in a dictionary, a valid word; (b) a word which has been listed in a dictionary but which is rarely or never used, an obscure or recondite word.
1602 S. Sturtevant Dibre Adam (title-page),A rare and new invention‥. Where‥al the *Dictionarie words of the Language of Canaan are truly represented, and cleerely written.
1721 tr. T. Le Fèvre Compendious Way teaching Learned Langs. 65Bewildring themselves in a Labyrinth of Dictionary-Words, of very different Significations, tho' of the same Sounds, for want of Skill to make shoice of such as are proper for their purpose.
1794 W. B. Stevens Jrnl. 19 Nov. (1965) 206He seems to be quandaryed (that's not a dictionary word I believe).
1831 L. E. Landon Romance & Reality I. xiv. 125As I once heard a little child say, 'Oh, mamma, I always speak to Mrs. S. in such dictionary words!'
1858 R. S. Surtees Ask Mamma i. 1His fine dictionary words and laboured expletives.
1946 Time 2 Dec. 31/2[They] prefer meaningless combinations of letters to dictionary words.
2003 J. Anward in C. Goodwin Conversation & Brain Damage viii. 196If the actual word is not a dictionary word, only phonological similarity is held to be relevant.
Derivatives
ˈdictionaryless adj. without a dictionary.
1854 Fraser's Mag. 50 317Battling, grammarless and *dictionaryless, with a work in a strange idiom.
1995 R. Ohly in M. Pütz Discrim. through Lang. in Africa? iv. 288The African communities remained 'dictionaryless' although several middle-size dictionaries were at hand at that time.
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