The Modern Anglo-Bengali Dictionary

The word ?Dictionary? is derived from the Latin word ?dictionarium?, literally meaning ?a repertory? of dictions, i.e., phrases and words. A dictionary is also called a ?lexion? and hence the science of compiling dictionaries is called ?lexicography?. There are a few types of dictionaries. The most common type of a monolingual dictionary may be defined as?a book dealing with the individual words (or certain specified classes of them) so as to set forth their orthography, pronunciation, signification and use, their synonyms, derivations and history, or at least some of these factors.? The tradition of lexicography is very ancient in India. Since very old times, many lexicons had been written in Sanskrit, some of which have been lost, but a good number survive. The old Sanskrit lexicons are not dictionaries in the modern sense; they are thesauruses of synonyms, antonyms and homonyms.