16. Dictionaries in electronic form Hilary Nesi in: Cowie, A. P. (ed) The Oxford History of English Lexicography

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16. Dictionaries in electronic form 
Hilary Nesi 
in: Cowie, A. P. (ed) The Oxford History of English Lexicography Oxford: Oxford University Press 
458-478 (2008) 
 
16.1 Introduction 
The term Electronic dictionary can be used to refer to any data collection in electronic 
form concerned with the spelling, meaning or use of words. Although this broad 
definition can be taken to include machine-readable databases used by language 
researchers, and glossaries, translators, and spell-checkers incorporated into 
educational or office software, this chapter will focus on the history of more complete 
lexical reference tools, and particularly on monolingual or bilingual dictionaries 
intended for use by English speakers― whether natives or foreign learners. It will 
consider 
electronic learners’ dictionaries accessible via hand-held mobile devices, 
laptop or desktop computers, and the internet.
 
16.2 The early use of computers in lexicography 
Computers were first employed in lexicography in the 1960s. As associate editor of 
the Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1966) Laurence Urdang 
designed a database system to categorise and sort units of dictionary information (for 
which he coined the term ‘dataset’). Definitions could thus be extracted according to 
subject field, and alphabetical ordering could be achieved automatically, freeing 
lexicographers to work from a thematic perspective (Urdang, 1966; Logan, 1991; 
Cowie 1999: 120). Computer typesetting was still in its infancy, however, and the 
final electronic version had to be keyed in from a paper version rather than being 
transferred directly to the printer (Logan, 1991: 351; Kilgarriff 2006: 785). At around 

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the same time the Lexicographic Project at System Development Corporation in Santa 
Monica, California, were creating magnetic tape versions of the paper-based 
Webster’s 7
th
New Collegiate Dictionary and the New Merriam-Webster Pocket 
Dictionary (Olney et al. 1967, Revard 1968). Machine-readable dictionary texts were 
used for research into natural language processing (Markowitz et al. 1986), although 
in time it
became clear 
that traditional dictionaries did not contain enough information 
to make adequate lexical databases for this purpose (Zaenen 2002).
Advances in technology in the 1970s encouraged a more extensive use of 
computers in lexicographical projects. Computer-based compilation systems were 
employed to sort and check entries in both the first Longman Dictionary of 
Contemporary English (LDOCE) (1978), perhaps the first truly computerized 
dictionary, widely distributed to universities and research centres for use as a resource 
for lexical studies (
 F
ONTENELLE
) and in the first edition of the Collins English 
Dictionary (1979), which was particularly notable for its improved page layout, 
achieved through innovative use of computerized typesetting in place of conventional 
hot metal or film printing methods (Kilgarriff 2006: 786). Corpus lexicography began 
in the early 1980s, with the inauguration of the COBUILD project (Sinclair 1987) (
 
M
OON
) eventually leading to the publication of the Collins COBUILD English 
Dictionary in 1987.
Lexicographic information in machine-readable form became increasingly 
available to lexicographers and researchers. Dodd (1989: 85) names the Diccionario 
de la Lengua Española 
(1984) as ‘probably the last large European dictionary to be 
completed using exclusively the traditional methods of handwritten slips and 
letterpress c
omposition and printing’, and at the 1981 symposium ‘Lexicography in 
the Electronic Age’ it was claimed that ‘at some point in the production―at the 

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composing and proofreading stage―practically all books and other texts will have 
been stored in a machine-r
eadable form, e.g. on punched tape, magnetic tape or disc’ 
(Norling Christensen 1982: 213). The use of computers in the process of book 
preparation had huge implications for dictionary publishers, who could revise, 
modernize and combine dictionary material more quickly and easily than ever before, 
but, as Hartmann pointed out at the same
symposium
, it had little impact on ordinary 
dictionary users. According to Hartmann ‘most of these have had no experience of the 
sort of gadgets we have talked about, nor are they likely to have the opportunity in the 
foreseeable future to benefit from them’ (Hartmann 1982: 255). As it happened, the 
first attempts to provide users with reference material in electronic form were made 
not by the dictionary publishing houses, but by the designers and suppliers of 
consumer electronics.