encyclopedia

en·cy·clo·pe·di·a  (n-skl-pd-)

n.

A comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field, usually arranged alphabetically.

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[Medieval Latin encyclopaedia, general education course, from alteration of Greek enkuklios paideia, general education : enkuklios, circular, general; see encyclical + paideia, education (from pais, paid-, child; see pau-¹ in Indo-European roots).]

Word History: The word encyclopedia, which to us usually means a large set of books, descends from a phrase that involved coming to grips with the contents of such books. The Greek phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios, "cyclical, periodic, ordinary," and paideia, "education," and meaning "general education." Copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkuklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, coming into English with the sense "general course of instruction," first recorded in 1531. In New Latin the word was chosen as the title of a reference work covering all knowledge. The first such use in English is recorded in 1644.

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encyclopedia or encyclopaedia

Noun

a book or set of books, often in alphabetical order, containing facts about many different subjects or about one particular subject [Greek enkuklios general + paideia education]

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encyclopedia, encyclopaedia

a book or set of books containing detailed knowledge and information about a variety of fxelds or subfields; an exhaustive work of learning 01 knowledge. Also called cyclopedia, cyclopaedia. — encyclopedist, encyclopaedist, n. — encyclopedie, encyclopaedic, encyclopedical, encyclopaedical, adj.

See also: Books

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

encyclopedia - a reference work (often in several volumes) containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty cyclopaedia, cyclopedia, encyclopaedia book of facts, reference book, reference work, reference - a book to which you can refer for authoritative facts; "he contributed articles to the basic reference work on that topic" book of knowledge - an elementary encyclopedia dealing with general knowledge

Translations

encyclopedia, encyclopaedia [ɛnsaɪkləuˈpiːdɪə] n → enciclopedia