Best 108 quotes in «dictionary quotes» category

FV: Annandale defines 'definition' as "an explanation of the signification of a term." Yet Oxford, on the other hand, defines it as "a statement of the precise meaning of a word." A small, perhaps negligible difference you might think. And neither, would you say, is necessarily more correct than the other? But now look up each of the words comprising each definition, and then the definitions of those definitions, and so on. Some still may only differ slightly, while others may differ quite a lot. Yet any discrepancy, large or small, only compounds that initial difference further and further, pushing each 'definition' farther apart. How similar are they then at the end of this process...assuming it ever would end? Could we possibly even be referring to the same word by this point? And we still haven't considered what Collins here...or Gage, or Funk and Wagnalls might have to say about it. Off on enough tangents and you're eventually led completely off track. ML: Or around in circles. FV: Precisely! ML: Oxford, though, is generally considered the authority, isn't it? FV: Well, it's certainly the biggest...the most complete. But then, that truly is your vicious circle - every word defined...every word in every definition defined...around and around in an infinite loop. Truly a book that never ends. A concise or abridged dictionary may, at least, have an out... ML: I wonder, then, what the smallest possible "complete dictionary" would be? Completely self-contained, that is, with every word in every definition accounted for. How many would that be, do you suppose? Or, I guess more importantly, which ones? FV: Well, that brings to mind another problem. You know that Russell riddle about naming numbers?

Home means always here...

If it's any consolation, Princess, I think he's a supercilious, salacious sap." "You've been reading the dictionary!" "My only hope of comprehending your conversation, my petite sesquipedalian.

How come "burbled" gets to be in the Oxford English Dictionary but "tulgy" doesn't? Hm?

Human suffering has been caused because too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use. The mere presence in the dictionary of a word like 'living' does not mean it necessarily has to refer to something definite in the real world.

I don't understand your book. Isn't every book a book of words?

If I were allowed to take just one book to the proverbial desert island, it might be a dictionary.

I hereby propose the term “miserize”, as a verb for misery – referring to “to cause misery”.

If the reader needs a dictionary to read your book then the dictionary may turn out to be a more interesting read.

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle…. Writing in my mother tongue—at that point close to extinction—I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again…. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless.

I opened up a dictionary And tried to find a meaning in a hurry. Turned the pages to look for the word -- "Perfect" And saw you listed there, coz I know you're worth it!

In old days, instead of asking a teacher, people looked at the dictionary to know the complete definition of teacher. Now Google becomes our teacher and to know about Google, people Google it.

It's like a dictionary. You know the word is in there, but you need to know how to spell what you want first

I want to read the entire dictionary, but I am afraid that someone is going to spoil the ending!

It's stupid, really," I began again. "But it was this thing I read someplace, and it really got to me. It said that a dictionary is every book ever written and every book that will be written, just in a different order. And it seemed magical. You could own every book just by owning one book. I loved that. And I just had to have it,

I wish I had a dictionary to translate mixed signals.

One's freedom is one's love and one's love is one's undoing, it's all in the dictionary...

Living with contradiction may be nothing new to humans, but acknowledging it, and accepting it are. Even the dictionary has trouble accepting a paradox, calling it 'two things that seem to be contradictory but may possibly be true.' But that's not a real paradox--a real paradox IS contradictory and IS true. So I don't even call them paradoxes anymore, I call them 'contradictory co-existing realities,' both in direct opposition to each other, both true at the same time.

Mistake is a single page in a part of Life .... but Relation is a book of dictionary ----- So don't lose a full Book for a single page.

Mizuko loved reading the dictionary. She liked it when there were multiple meanings for words and when opposite meanings could be contained.

Novel: A small tale, generally of love.

Luckily," he went on, "you have come to exactly the right place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact," he added, brandishing the abused book, "everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' appears to be missing.

Never allow yourself to be defined by your past; ‘yesterday’ is just a word, not a dictionary.

(Sartre) (The world is full without me, as in Nausea; the world plays at living behind a glass partition; the world is in an aquarium; I see everything close up and yet cut off, made of some other substance; I keep falling outside myself, without dizziness, without blue, into precision.

Telephone books are, like dictionaries, already out of date the moment they are printed....

Scholars, I plead with you, Where are your dictionaries of the wind, the grasses?

Since you cannot always carry and display your diploma. Kindly act like you have one. Professionalism. Include that to your dictionary.

Thank god I finally found love! Its on page 186 in the Oxford Dictionary...

There are occasions, however, when even S holds a secret delight or two in the form of a pink, such as the one I found among the citations (or "cits" for short) for "sex kitten": sex kitten sex pot There is no essential difference in these defs [definitions], but they're not the same. Some differentiation shd be made. The pink was written by one of our former physical science editors infamous for commenting as brusquely as possible on things beyond his remit... Another one of our science editors who was reviewing the batch later was apparently irritated by this note, and decided to comment on what he no doubt saw as needless meddling. His typewritten response to the note about "sex kitten" reads, "I will no doubt regret saying this but I think you have misconstrued the meaning of 'physical' science somewhere along here." But a pink's a pink. Steve acted on it for the Tenth, adding the word "young" to the definition for "sex kitten.

The lonely drudgery of lexicography, the terrible undertow of words against which men like Murray and Minor had so ably struggled and stood, now had at least it's great reward. Twelve mighty volumes; 414,825 words defined; 1,827,306 illustrative quotations used, to which William Minor alone had contributed scores of thousands.

The only place you will find love before sacrifice is in the dictionary.

Words of our hearts have their own dictionary

The word "Enough”! It’s the common word, rather the only word, in the dictionary of satisfaction.

To creative people, the compendium of the white man's dialect are unfashionable, because their creations are more than what the tongue could say.

Tudo parecia organizado da melhor forma possível, como se de fato o mundo constasse somente de palavras, como se assim o próprio horror fosse trazido para dimensões seguras, como se para cada aspecto de uma coisa houvesse um reverso, para cada mal um bem, para cada dissabor um prazer, para cada infelicidade uma felicidade e para cada mentira um quinhão de verdade.

When I see a dictionary on my desk I feel like I'm looking at some strange dog leaving a twisty piece of poop on our lawn out back.

You weasel, good-for-nothing, scumbag, swine, sleazebag, scumbucket, scoundrel, son-of-a-bitch!” In the midst of everything, we all looked at Rosina, who smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I was reading the Dictionary the other day.” I stared at her with incomprehension.

You're like a dictionary. You know the word is in there, but you need to know how to spell what you want first

A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

Acedia is not in every dictionary; just in every heart.

A dictionary can embrace only a small part of the vast tapestry of a language.

All the words you need are to be found in the dictionary. All you have to do is put them in the right order.

Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic

A man armed with a rhyming dictionary is a dangerous man.

A word in a dictionary is very much like a car in a mammoth motor show - full of potential but temporarily inactive.

Back in the 19th century, our marketing folks decided to play up the refined usage angle because prescriptivism was very popular: our dictionary is where you go to learn anything about anything. That really set the tone in North America for how people responded to dictionaries.

Cantona's expression speaking the whole French dictionary without saying a word.

Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.

Are there any more beautiful words in the English dictionary than 'see you tomorrow?

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.