lexicography

noun

1. (uncountable)The art or craft of compiling, writing, and editing dictionaries.

   “[T]here are ſeveral Species of Writing, in which a proper Degree of Hebetude is abſolutely neceſſary, as well as in other profeſſions; such as Lexicography, Index-making, and the like; [...]”

   “And ſuch is the fate of hapleſs lexicography, that not only darkneſs, but light, impedes and diſtreſſes it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illuſtrated.”

   “Let me warn you, therefore, against that fallacious lexicography which forms new words, that undergoing the examination of political slander or intemperate zeal, are considered as having a known acception.—What is the word?—A word that should be discarded, when it is sought to affix to it another meaning than that which it bears in the cases where it is used.”

   “[...] I have not only availed myſelf of all the Aſſiſtance which more ancient Sources of Spaniſh Lexicography could afford, but alſo had particular Recourſe to the Dictionary published at Madrid in 1797 and 1798, [...]”

   “There exist different forms of this character, but I think we should not presume to make an etymology of a Chinese character without being authorized by the Shwǒ wǎn, the oldest and most genuine source of Chinese lexicography.”

2. (uncountable)The scholarly discipline of analysing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language and developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries.

   “But changes of this nature belong to lexicography, as they do not affect the grammatical forms of words.”

   “What the history of language in general teaches, that in course of time, there is less change in form than signification, in grammar than lexicography, is true of the Greek.”

   “If Lexicography in general is that science whose task it is to set forth the nature of every single word of a language through all the periods of its existence, it is the task of Latin lexicography in particular to set forth the nature of every single word of the Latin language, as it makes itself known in all the periods of the existence of that language; or more succinctly expressed, it is the object of Latin lexicography to give the history of every single word of the Latin language.”

   “[T]he philologist may well refuse to accept a body of triliteral roots, developed on a highly artificial and uniform plan, as the ultimate fact in Semitic lexicography.”

   “Academic lexicography, or 'metalexicography', as pursued in university departments of English or Linguistics, is concerned not primarily with the compiling of dictionaries – though academics may be involved in this, as consultants, for example – but with researching and teaching about the whole business of making dictionaries: their history, their typology, their structures, their users, and so on [...].”

3. (countable)A dictionary, a lexicon, a wordbook.

   “There can be no doubt, that in a general sense a boat is a vessel, for it is "a vehicle in which men or goods are carried on the water," which is one of the definitions of a vessel given in our lexicographies; [...]”

   “"Air put in motion" is the brief description of the wind in lexicographies; but what a contrast in quality according to its direction; [...]”

   “The earliest examples of dictionaries or lexicographies in nearly any culture serve more to regularize and standardize the lexicon than to list or inventory it, and as such would tend to take as their object textual rather than spoken language.”