2026-11-08

Dictionaries on historical principles

First edition of famous Oxford English Dictionary was called
A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles

On historical principles means that the dictionary collects the uses of the word from oldest records up to modern texts. So you can trace the meaning of the word and find a lot of cool quotes from old books.

Most European languages have a dictionary on historical principles. Here I will list the ones I found. For me they are interesting as a way to find ancient books in foreign languages. Each word is a rabbit hole.

Danish

Ordbog over det danske Sprog - https://ordnet.dk/ods

Dutch

Historische woordenboeken - https://gtb.ivdnt.org/search/

Look for WNT, Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal.

English

World English Historical Dictionary - https://wehd.com/

That’s the first edition of OED.

Oxford English Dictionary - https://www.oed.com/

To access this site you need institutional subscription.
There’s an MDX dictionary out there.

Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction - https://sfdictionary.com/

Finnish

Vanhan kirjasuomen sanakirja - https://kaino.kotus.fi/vks/

French

Trésor de la Langue Française - http://atilf.atilf.fr/

There’s a DSL dictionary out there.

German

Woerterbuchnetz - https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=DWB#0

This portal hosts Grimm Brothers’ Deutsches Wörterbuch and other German dictionaries.

Greek, Latin

Logeion - https://logeion.uchicago.edu

Look for LSJ, Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon.

Italian

Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini - http://tlio.ovi.cnr.it/TLIO/

Latin

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae - https://publikationen.badw.de/en/thesaurus/lemmata#~-0a-

Lithuanian

Lietuvių kalbos žodynas - http://www.lkz.lt/

Polish

Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego Xvii I Xviii Wieku - https://sxvii.pl/

Russian

Словарь Академии Российской - https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2528101

Scotish

Dictionaries of the Scots Language - https://dsl.ac.uk/

Spanish

Diccionario histórico de la lengua española - https://www.rae.es/dhle/

Swedish

Svenska Akademiens ordbok - https://svenska.se/

Look for SAOB tab.