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Concept
Kangxi Dictionary
Summary
The Kangxi Dictionary ( (Compendium of standard characters from the Kangxi period), published in 1716, was the most authoritative dictionary of Chinese characters from the 18th century through the early 20th. The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710 in order to improve on earlier dictionaries, to show his concern for Confucian culture, and to foster the standardization of the writing system. The dictionary takes its name from the Emperor's era name.
The dictionary was the largest of the traditional dictionaries, containing 47,043 characters. Some 40% of them are graphic variants, however, while others are dead, archaic, or found only once. Fewer than a quarter of the characters it contains are now in common use.
The Kangxi Dictionary is available in many forms, from Qing dynasty block print editions, to reprints in traditional Chinese bookbinding, to modern revised editions with essays in Western-style hardcover, to a digitized Internet version.
In his preface to the 1716 printing, the Emperor wrote:
Every time I read widely in the commentaries on the classics, the pronunciations and meanings are complex and obscure, and each person protects his own explanations according to his individual view, so that it is not likely that any will communicate everything without gaps. Thus I have ordered the scholar officials to acquire all the old documents, then to arrange them and revise them.
He chose the term Zidian (字典) himself. This did not then mean "dictionary" but rather something like "compendium" of "standard" or "model" characters, to show the correct forms and authoritative pronunciations. It was generally referred to as Zidian, which in the late 19th century became the standard Chinese word for "dictionary" and used in the title of practically every dictionary published since then. In literary Chinese of the sort covered, most (but not all) words are represented by a single character; the compilers did not make a distinction between 字 (zi) in the sense of "character" and in the sense of "word," a distinction introduced only in the late 19th century.
Official source
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