Reverse dictionary

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A reverse dictionary is a compilation of words organized in some non-standard (i.e., non-alphabetical) order that provides the user with information that would be difficult to obtain from a traditionally alphabetized dictionary. So, for example, A Reverse Dictionary of the Spanish Language^[1] and Walker's Rhyming Dictionary^[2] are reverse dictionaries the organization of which is based upon sorting each word based upon its last letter and subsequent letters proceeding toward the beginning of that word. Consequently, in this reverse dictionary all words that have the same suffix appear in order in the dictionary. Such a reverse dictionary would be useful for linguists and poets who might be looking for words ending with a particular suffix. Reverse dictionaries of this type have been published for most major alphabetic languages. By way of contrast, in a standard dictionary words are organized such that words with the same prefix appear in order.

Another type of reverse dictionary is one organized based on concepts, phrases, or the definition of a word. This is in contrast to a standard dictionary, in which words are indexed by headword. The Diccionario Ideológico de la Lengua Española (Spanish Language Ideological Dictionary)^[3] is an example of a reverse dictionary that allows the user to find words based on general concepts.

[edit] See also

• Concept Reverse Dictionaries
• Bernstein, Theodore, Bernstein's Reverse Dictionary, Crown, New York, 1975. (English) * Edmonds, David (ed.), The Oxford Reverse Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999 (English)
• Casares Sánchez, Julio (ed.), Diccionario Ideológico de la Lengua Española, Editorial Gustavo * Gill, Barcelona, 1943 (Spanish)
• Reader's Digest, Reverse Dictionary, 1989. (English)

• Dictionary
• Lexographer
• Thesaurus

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[edit] References

1. ^ Stahl, Fred A., Scavnicky, Gary E. A., A Reverse Dictionary of the Spanish Language, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL,1974.
2. ^ Walker, John, The rhyming dictionary of the English language: in which the whole language is arranged according to its terminations ..., Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.
3. ^ Casares Sánchez, Julio (ed.), Diccionario Ideológico de la Lengua Española, Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1943.