The Kangxi Dictionary () was the standard Chinese character dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710 and it was published in 1716, named in his honor.

The Kangxi Dictionary editors, including Zhang Yushu (張玉書) and Chen Tingjing (陳廷敬), partly based it on two Ming Dynasty dictionaries: the 1615 Zihui (字彙 "Character Glossary") by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚), and the 1627 Zhengzi tong (正字通 "Correct Character Mastery") by Zhang Zilie (張自烈). Since the imperial edict required that the Kangxi Dictionary be compiled within five years, a number or errors were inevitable. The Daoguang Emperor established a review board and their 1831 Zidian kaozheng (字典考證 "Character Dictionary Textual Research") corrected 2588 mistakes, mostly in quotations and citations. (Teng and Biggerstaff 1971: 130)

The supplemented dictionary contains 49,030 character entries, 1995 of which are graphic variants, giving a total of 47,035 different characters. They are grouped under the 214 radicals and arranged by the number of additional strokes in the character.

The character entries give variants (if any), pronunciations in traditional fanqie spelling and in modern reading of a homophone, different meanings, and quotations from Chinese books and lexicons. The dictionary also contains rime tables with characters ordered under syllable rime classes, tones, and initial syllable onsets.

The Kangxi Dictionary is available in many forms, from old Qing Dynasty editions in block printing, to reprints in traditional Chinese bookbinding, to modern revised editions with essays in Western hardcover, to the digitized Net Version.

Structure of the Kangxi dictionary

• Preface by Kangxi Emperor : pp. 1-6 (御製序)
• Notes on the use of the dictionary : pp. 7-12 (凡例)
• Indication of pronuciation of characters : pp. 13-40 (等韻)
• Comprehensive table of contents by radicals : pp. 41-49 (總目)
• Facilitated consulting contents : pp. 50-71 (检字)

• The dictionary proper : pp. 75-1631
  • Main text : pp. 75-1538
  • Addendum contents : pp. 1539-1544 (補遺)
  • Addendum text : pp. 1545-1576
  • Appendix contents (No-source-characters) : pp. 1577-1583 (備考)
  • Appendix text : pp. 1585-1631
• Postscript : pp. 1633-1635　(后记)
• Textual research : pp. 1637-1683 (考证)

See also

• List of Kangxi radicals

References

• Teng, Ssu-yü and Biggerstaff, Knight. 1971. An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Chinese Reference Works, 3rd ed. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN: 0674038517

External links

• 康熙字典網上版 Kangxi Dictionary Net Version
• Kangxi zidian 康熙字典, Chinaknowledge

Chinese dictionaries | Qing Dynasty

Geriadur lunioù Kangxi | Kangxi-Wörterbuch | Diccionario de Kangxi | Dictionnaire de caractères de Kangxi | 康熙字典 | 康熙字典