Lexikon

A lexikon, or lexicon, is a collection of words and their meanings, or a reference work that arranges entries alphabetically. In linguistics, the term can denote either the mental store of a language speaker’s vocabulary or an external dictionary-like resource. In publishing, a lexikon or lexicon often denotes a dictionary-like reference book.

Etymology: The word derives from Greek lexis, 'word,' and the suffix -ikon. It has been adopted into many languages to describe word lists, dictionaries, and other vocabulary resources.

Types and uses: General lexica describe the complete vocabulary of a language, while specialized lexica cover domains such as medicine, law, or technology. Bilingual lexica provide translations, and historical lexica document older forms. In linguistics, a distinction is made between the mental lexicon and external lexica, such as dictionaries or lexical databases used in research.

History: Lexical works date to ancient civilizations, with glossaries and word lists in Mesopotamian, Greek, and Latin traditions. Medieval glossaries evolved into modern dictionaries and encyclopedic lexica. In the digital era, lexica often exist as databases that store lemmas, parts of speech, senses, and semantic relations.

Relevance: Lexica underpin language learning, translation, search, and natural language processing. Notable examples include comprehensive general dictionaries and computational resources such as WordNet.