What is a lexicon?
Johnson’s Dictionary The word “lexicon” is a synonym for a dictionary or word list, like Samuel Johnson’s dictionary or Noah Webster’s dictionary. Sometimes a “lexicon” is a bilingual dictionary, for example, one of Dickinson’s textbooks was A new and copious lexicon of the Latin language by Frederick Percival Leverett (1839). The word “lexicon” can also refer to a specialized dictionary for the works of a particular author or the words used by a particular audience. In linguistic terminology, the word “lexicon” refers to the total inventory of word forms and morphemes in a language or in the mind of a speaker. Photo credit: earlywomenmasters.
