Hanyu Da Cidian

The Hanyu Da Cidian is the most inclusive available Chinese dictionary. Lexicographically comparable to the OED, it has diachronic coverage of the Chinese language, and traces usage over three millennia from Chinese classic texts to modern slang. The chief editor Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風 , along with a team of over 300 scholars and lexicographers, started the enormous task of compilation in 1979. Publication of the thirteen volumes began in 1986 and finished in 1993.

The ''Hanyu da cidian'' includes over 23,000 head Chinese character entries, defines some 370,000 words, and gives 1,500,000 citations. The head entries, which are by a novel 200 system, are given in traditional Chinese characters while simplified Chinese characters are noted. Definitions and explanations are in simplified, excepting classical quotations.

Volume 13 has both pinyin and count indexes, plus appendices. A separate index volume lists 728,000 entries for characters by their position within words and phrases, something like a reverse dictionary. For instance, the ''Hanyu da cidian'' enters ''Daode jing'' 道德經 under the head character ''dao''; this reverse-index lists it under both ''de'' and ''jing''. "Despite the fact that it weighs over 20 kilos and contains a total of 50 million characters spread over 20,000 large double-column pages," says Wilkinson , "the ''Hanyu da cidian'' is an easy dictionary to use to the full because it is unusually well indexed." It became even easier to use when Victor H. Mair edited a single-sort alphabetically arranged pinyin index .

The abridged CD-ROM version contains 18,013 head characters, 336,385 words and phrases, and 861,956 citations. It includes male and female sound files for pronunciation, and enables more than 20 search methods. The 3.0 CD-ROM version was released in 2007.