n. A dictionary of new words that are predicted to become part of the mainstream lexicon.
2005
Funktionary is a predictionary. It's a slice of that limbo-land where new words are happening, but are still not sufficiently "at large" to be captured in a major dictionary. I like to think of it as a holding bay for neonatal words.
2004
Bringing me to "chance of making it to Webster's" as a winning criterion. Not really. Note, though, that we are hoping to start a PreDictionary feature soon. The PreDictionary concept comes to us by way of another significant site contributor, Dr. Mikhail Epstein. The PreDictionary would be geared towards "driving" PseudoDictionary entries into the general lexicon — that is, to try to select new words and phrases that we think should "make it to Webster's" and give them a push. Eventually the PreDictionary might become a newsletter.
2003 (earliest)
PreDictionary n (pre, from Lat. prae, before + dictionary; or: predict + suffixes -ion and -ary) - a projective dictionary that does not register words already in use but "predicts" new words and introduces them for the first time.
Almost all dictionaries, even those that contain neologisms, are reactive: they reflect various foregone stages in the development of language. A PreDictionary, on the contrary, is a proactive dictionary: it contributes new words that may make their way into the dictionaries of the future.
Almost all dictionaries, even those that contain neologisms, are reactive: they reflect various foregone stages in the development of language. A PreDictionary, on the contrary, is a proactive dictionary: it contributes new words that may make their way into the dictionaries of the future.
Mikhail Epstein, a professor of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at Emory University, tells me that he coined this wonderful neologism in 2000, but did not use it on the web until September 2003.