Dict
- No dedicated HT Wiki article yet. This page mirrors the heidict entry for Dict — add ecosystem context above the mirror when known.
heidict entry
Dict — /dɪkt/ · noun · sentiment: neutral.
Inflections
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| plural | dicts |
Definitions
- (informal) — Dictionary. Clipping of the full word — "the dict says X", "check the dict", "somebody add that to the dict". In en_{heidict} it's the self-reference: the dict means heidict itself, the same way the wiki means HT Wiki. The clipping is old (schoolroom shorthand) but the "our subculture's canonical reference" reading is 2020s ambient.
- it's in the dict now, official
- the dict has three senses for cooked'
- somebody get this term in the dict
- benedict runs the dict
- (technical, programming) — A hash-map / associative-array data structure — a mapping from hashable keys to arbitrary values. Especially Python's built-in `dict` type (ordered since 3.7). Extended in casual programming talk to any language's equivalent concept: "stick it in a dict keyed by lemma", "the config parses to a nested dict". Named for the same reason as the reference-work sense — a dictionary maps words to definitions; a dict maps keys to values.
- just stick it in a dict keyed by lemma
- the config parses to a nested dict
- iterate the dict, don't index it
- hd.py loads dict.json into a list of dicts
Etymology
- dict
- English clipping of dictionary (medieval Latin dictionarium, "a book of sayings", from Latin dictio, "a saying, an utterance"). Same clipping shape as vocab — trim to the stressed syllable, drop the tail. The programming (data- structure) sense inherited the clipping from Python's early (0.x, 1990s) built-in type name.
Two senses, same root, same clipping, different conceptual namespaces. Register disambiguates in practice — a Python dev talking about "the dict" almost always means the data structure; a lexicographer talking about "the dict" almost always means the reference work. The metaphor holds either way (mapping something to something else).
Usage
Distinguish from vocab: dict is the reference-work or the data structure; vocab is the set of words. You add lemmas to the dict; those lemmas expand the vocab available to speakers of en_{heidict}. In heidict specifically, the dict refers to heidict itself; the vocab refers to the corpus of terms it catalogues.
Related
Sources
- Canonical entry: heidict — Dict
- Source of truth (YAML):
~/ht/heidict/entries/dict.yaml - Curated by Benedict under heidict editorial doctrine.