Hoofdekwivalent

Hoofdekwivalent is a term used in lexicography and computational linguistics to denote the headword equivalent of a concept across languages within a multilingual lexicon, dictionary, or ontology. It refers to the canonical headword in a language that corresponds to a particular concept or lemma in another language. The concept supports cross-language alignment by associating a single, preferred headword per language with each sense or usage.

Etymology and scope: The word is formed from Dutch hoofd (head) and equivalent, reflecting its function as the head term in a given language that matches another language’s lemma. In practice, the hoofdekwivalent is chosen to reflect the most common or standard form used as the primary entry in that language’s part of the resource.

Applications: In bilingual dictionaries, lexical databases (such as multilingual lexicons or ontology mappings), terminologies, and cross-language information retrieval, hoofdekwivalent helps standardize mappings and improves search accuracy. It is typically sense-disambiguated; polysemous terms may have multiple hoofdekwivalent entries, one per sense.

Relation to related concepts: Hoofdekwivalent is related to, but distinct from, the lemma (the base form used to represent a word’s entry in a language) and from translations or glosses. In many projects the term overlaps with “lemma equivalent” or “headword mapping,” but conventions vary, and not all resources use the same terminology.

Example: In a Dutch–English dictionary, the Dutch word fiets has the hoofdekwivalent bicycle as its primary English headword for the bicycle sense. Conversely, in an English–Dutch resource, the English term bicycle would have voetane related hoofdekwivalent fiets for its primary Dutch sense. The approach helps maintain consistent cross-language access to concepts.