Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important. For additional information, see Jerry Norman (1988:170-180) for an overview or Paul Fu-mien Yang (1985) for a scholarly bibliography.

Terminology
The precursors of Chinese dictionaries are primers designed for students of Chinese characters. The earliest of them only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts. For example, the Shi Zhou Pian (史籀篇 "Compilation by Historian Zhou") was supposedly written by Shi Zhou, a scribe or historian in the court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE- 782 BCE), and is associated with the Large seal script. Or, the Cang Jie Pian (倉頡篇 "Compilation by Cang Jie"), named after the legendary inventor of writing, was edited by Li Si, and helped to standardize the Small seal script during the Qin Dynasty.
The collation or lexicographical ordering of a dictionary generally depends upon its writing system. For a language written in an alphabet or syllabary, dictionaries are usually ordered alphabetically. Samuel Johnson defined dictionary as "a book containing the words of any language in alphabetical order, with explanations of their meaning" in his dictionary. But Johnson's definition cannot be applied to the Chinese dictionaries, as Chinese is written in characters or logograph, not alphabets. To Johnson, not having an alphabet is not to the Chinese's credit, as in 1778, when James Boswell asked about the Chinese characters, he replied (Boswell 1907:822) "Sir, they have not an alphabet. They have not been able to form what all other nations have formed." Nevertheless, the Chinese made their dictionaries, and developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations.

Traditional Chinese lexicography
The first system of dictionary organization is by semantic categories. The circa 3rd century BCE Erya (爾雅 "Approaching Correctness") is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary, and scholarship reveals that it is a pre-Qin compilation of glosses to classical texts. It contains lists of synonyms arranged into 19 semantic categories (e.g., "Explaining Plants," "Explaining Trees"). The Han Dynasty dictionary Xiao Erya (小爾雅 "Little Erya") reduces these 19 to 13 chapters. The early 3rd century CE Guangya (廣雅 "Expanded Erya"), from the Northern Wei Dynasty, followed the Erya's original 19 chapters. The circa 1080 CE Piya (埤雅 "Increased Erya"), from the Song Dynasty, has 8 semantically-based chapters of names for plants and animals. For a dictionary user wanting to look up a character, this arbitrary semantic system is inefficient unless one already knows, or can guess, the meaning.
Two other Han Dynasty lexicons are loosely organized by semantics. The 1st century CE Fangyan (方言 "Regional Speech") is the world's oldest known dialectal dictionary. The circa 200 CE Shiming (釋名 "Explaining Names") employs paranomastic glosses to define words.

Graphically organized dictionaries
The third system of lexicographical ordering is by character pronunciation. This type of dictionary collates its entries by syllable rime and tones, and comprises the so-called "rime dictionary". The first surviving rime dictionary is the 601 CE Qieyun (切韻 "Cutting [Spelling] Rimes") from the Sui Dynasty; it became the standard of pronunciation for Middle Chinese. During the Song Dynasty, it was expanded into the 1011 CE Guangyun (廣韻 "Expanded Rimes") and the 1037 CE Jiyun (集韻 "Collected Rimes").
The clear problem with these old phonetically arranged dictionary is that the would-be user needs to have the knowledge of rime. Thus, dictionaries collated this way can only serve the literati.
A great number of modern dictionaries published today arrange their entries by pinyin or other methods of romanisation, together with a radicals index. Some of these pinyin dictionaries also contain indices of the characters arranged by number and order of strokes, by the four corner encoding (四角碼) or by the cangjie encoding (倉頡碼).
Some dictionaries employ more than one of these three methods of collation. For example, the Longkan Shoujian (龍龕手鑑) of the Liao Dynasty uses radicals, which are grouped by tone. The characters under each radical are also grouped by tone.

Phonetically organized dictionaries
Besides categorizing ancient Chinese dictionaries by their methods of collation, they can also be classified by their functions. In the traditional bibliographic divisions of the imperial collection Siku Quanshu, the Xiaoxuelei (小學類 "Category of Minor Studies", which includes books on philology and "pre-modern linguistics") subdivides dictionaries into three types: Xungu (訓詁 "exegesis"), Zishu (字書 "character book") and Yunshu (韻書 "rime book").
The Xungu type comprises Erya and its descendants. These exegetical dictionaries focus on explaining meanings of words as found in the Chinese classics.
The Zishu dictionaries comprise Shuowen Jiezi, Yupian, Zihui, Zhengzitong, and Kangxi Zidian. This type of dictionary, which focuses on the shape and structure of the characters, subsumes both "orthography dictionaries", such as the Ganlu Zishu (干祿字書) of the Tang Dynasty, and "script dictionaries", such as the Liyun (隸韻) of the Song Dynasty. Although these dictionaries center upon the graphic properties of Chinese characters, they do not necessarily collate characters by radical. For instance, Liyun is a clerical script dictionary collated by tone and rime.
The Yunshu type focuses on the pronunciations of characters. These dictionaries are always collated by rimes.
While the above traditional pre-20th century Chinese dictionaries focused upon the meanings and pronunciations of words in classical texts, they practically ignored the spoken language and vernacular literature.

Functional classifications
The Kangxi Zidian served as the standard Chinese dictionary for generations, is still published and is now online. Contemporary lexicography is divisible between bilingual and monolingual Chinese dictionaries.

Modern Chinese lexicography
The foreigners who entered China in late Ming and Qing Dynasties needed dictionaries for different purposes than native speakers. Wanting to learn Chinese, they compiled the first grammar books and bilingual dictionaries. Westerners adapted the Latin alphabet to represent Chinese pronunciation, and arranged their dictionaries accordingly.
Two Bible translators edited early Chinese dictionaries. The Scottish missionary Robert Morrison wrote Chinese-English and English-Chinese lexicons (1815-1823). The British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst wrote Hokkien (Min Nan) dialect (1832) and Chinese-English (1842) dictionaries. Both were flawed in their representation of pronunciations, such as aspirated stops. The American philologist and diplomat Samuel Wells Williams applied the method of dialect comparison in his dictionary (1874), and refined distinctions in articulation.
The British diplomat and linguist Herbert Giles compiled a lexicon (1892, 1912) that Norman (1988:173) calls "the first truly adequate Chinese-English dictionary". It contained 13,848 characters and numerous compound expressions, with pronunciation based upon Beijing Mandarin, which it compared with nine southern dialects such as Hakka, Cantonese, and Min. Giles modified the Chinese romanization system of Thomas Francis Wade to create the Wade-Giles system, which was standard in the West until 1979 when pinyin was adopted. The American missionary Robert H. Mathews updated and condensed Giles for his (1931, 1943) Chinese-English dictionary, which was popular for decades.
Trained in American Structural linguistics, Yuen Ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang wrote a dictionary of colloquial Chinese (1947) that emphasized the spoken rather than the written language. Main entries were listed in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and they detailed grammatical topics like free morphemes and bound morphemes.
The Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren wrote the seminal (1957) Grammata Serica Recensa with his reconstructed pronunciations for Middle Chinese and Old Chinese.
Chinese lexicography advanced during the 1970s. The translator Lin Yutang wrote a semantically sophisticated dictionary (1972) that is now available online. The author Liang Shiqiu edited two full-scale dictionaries: Chinese-English (Liang and Fang 1971) with over 8,000 characters and 100,000 entries, and English-Chinese (Liang 1975) with over 160,000 entries.
The linguist and professor of Chinese, John DeFrancis edited a groundbreaking Chinese-English dictionary (1996) giving more than 196,000 entries alphabetically arranged in a single-sort pinyin order.

Chinese-English dictionaries
When the Republic of China began in 1912, educators and scholars recognized the need to update the 1716 Kangxi Zidian. It was thoroughly revised in the (1915) Zhonghua Da Zidian (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"), which corrected over 4,000 Kangxi Zidian mistakes and added more than 1,000 new characters. Lu Erkui's (1915) Ci Yuan (辭源 "Sources of Words") was a groundbreaking effort in Chinese lexicography and can be considered the first cidian "word dictionary".
Shu Xincheng's (1936) Cihai (辭海 "Sea of Words") was a comprehensive dictionary of characters and expressions, and provided near-encyclopedic coverage in fields like science, philosophy, history. The Cihai remains a popular dictionary and has been frequently revised.
The (1937) Guoyu cidian (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language") was a four-volume dictionary of words, designed to standardize modern pronunciation. The main entries were characters listed phonologically by Zhuyin Fuhao and Gwoyeu Romatzyh. For example, the title in these systems is ㄍㄨㄛㄩ ㄘㄉ一ㄢ and Gwoyeu tsyrdean.
Wei Jiangong's (1953) Xinhua Zidian (新华字典 "New China Character Dictionary") is a pocket-sized reference, alphabetically arranged by pinyin. It is the world's most popular dictionary, and the 10th edition was published in 2004.
Lu Shuxiang's (1973) Xiandai Hanyu cidian (现代汉语词典 "Contemporary Chinese Dictionary") is a middle-sized dictionary of words. It is arranged by characters, alphabetized by pinyin, which list compounds and phrases, with a total 56,000 entries (expanded to 65,000 in the 2005 edition). Both the Xinhua zidian and the Xiandai Hanyu cidian followed a simplified scheme of 189 radicals.
Two outstanding achievements in contemporary Chinese lexicography are the (1986-93) Hanyu Da Cidian (漢語大詞典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Words") with over 370,000 word and phrase entries listed under 23,000 different characters; and the (1986-89) Hanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters") with 54,678 head entries for characters. They both use a system of 200 radicals.
In recent years, the computerization of Chinese has allowed lexicographers to create dianzi cidian (電子詞典/电子词典 "electronic dictionaries") usable on computers, PDAs, etc. There are proprietary systems, such as Wenlin Software for learning Chinese, and there are also free dictionaries available online. After Paul Denisowski started the volunteer CEDICT (Chinese-English dictionary) project in 1997, it has grown into a standard reference database. The CEDICT is the basis for many Internet dictionaries of Chinese, and is included in the Unihan Database.

Chinese-Chinese dictionaries
Chinese publishing houses print diverse types of zhuanke cidian (專科詞典/专科词典 "specialized dictionary"). One Chinese dictionary bibliography (Mathis et al. 1982) lists over 130 subject categories, from "Abbreviations, Accounting" to "Veterinary, Zoology." The following examples are limited to specialized dictionaries from a few representative fields.

Specialized dictionaries
Twenty centuries ago, the Fangyan (see above) was the first Chinese specialized dictionary. The usual English translation for fangyan (方言 lit. "regional/areal speech") is "dialect", but the language situation in China is uniquely complex. In the "dialect" sense of English dialects, Chinese has Mandarin dialects, yet fangyan also means "non-Mandarin languages, mutually unintelligible regional variants of Spoken Chinese", such as Cantonese and Hakka. Some linguists like John DeFrancis prefer the translation "topolect". Here are some general fangyan cidian (方言词典 "topolect dictionary") examples.

Beijing University Chinese Department. Hanyu Fangyin Zihui (汉语方言字汇 "A syllabary of Chinese topolects") Beijing: Wenzi Gaige Chubanshe. 1962.
Beijing University Chinese Department. Hanyu fangyan cihui (汉语方言词汇 "A lexicon of Chinese topolects"). Beijing: Wenzi Gaige Chubanshe. 1964.
Xu Baohua 许宝华 and Miyata Ichiroo 宫田一郎, eds. Hanyu fangyan da cidian (汉语方言大词典 "A comprehensive dictionary of Chinese topolects"). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuzhu. 1999.
Zhan Bohui 詹伯慧, ed. Xiandai Hanyu fangyan da cidian (现代汉语方言大词典 "A comprehensive dictionary of modern Chinese topolects"). Qianjiang: Hubei Renmin Chubanshe. 2002. For dialects
Chinese has five words translatable as "idiom": chengyu (成語/成语 "set phrase; idiom"), yanyu (諺語/谚语 proverb; popular saying, maxim; idiom"), xiehouyu (歇後語/歇后语 "truncated witticism, aposiopesis; enigmatic folk simile"), xiyu (習語/习语 "idiom"), and guanyongyu (慣用語/惯用语 "fixed expression; idiom; locution"). Some modern dictionaries for idioms are:

Li Yihua 李一华 and Lu Deshen吕德申, eds. Hanyu chengyu cidian (汉语成语词典 "A dictionary of Chinese idioms"). Sichuan Cishu Chubanshe. 1985.
Wang Qin 王勤, ed. Fenlei Hanyu chengyu da cidian (分类汉语成语大词典 "A comprehensive classified dictionary of Chinese idioms"). Shandong jiaoyu. 1988.
Li Xingjian 李行健, ed. Xiandai Hanyu chengyu guifan cidian (现代汉语成语规范词典 "A standard dictionary of modern Chinese idioms"). Changqun Chubanshe. 2000.
Zhang Yipeng 张一鹏, ed. Yanyu da dian (谚语大典 "A Dictionary of Chinese Proverbs). Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian Chubanshe. 2004.
Wen Duanzheng 温端政. Zhongguo yanyu da quan (中国谚语大全 "An encyclopedia of Chinese proverbs"), 2 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu. 2004. For idioms
The Chinese language adopted a few foreign wailaici (外來詞/外来词 "loanwords") during the Han Dynasty, especially after Zhang Qian's exploration of the Western Regions. The lexicon absorbed many Buddhist terms and concepts when Chinese Buddhism began to flourish in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. During the late 19th century, when Western powers forced open China's doors, numerous loanwords entered Chinese, many through the Japanese language. While some foreign borrowings became obsolete, others became indispensable terms in modern vocabulary.

Cen Qixiang 岑麒祥 ed. Hanyu Wailaiyu Cidian (汉语外来语词典 "Dictionary of Loanwords in Chinese"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1990.
Liu Zhengtan 劉正談, et al. eds. Hanyu Wailaici Cidian (漢語外來詞詞典 "Dictionary of Loanwords in Chinese"). Hong Kong: Commercial Press; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe. 1985.
Shi Youwei 史有为, ed. Hanyu wailaici (汉语外来词 "Loanwords in Chinese"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 2000. For vernacular literature

Boswell, James. 1907. The Life of Samuel Johnson. Isaac Pitman & Sons.
Chao, Yuen Ren and Yang, Lien-sheng, eds. Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1947. ISBN 0-674-12350-6
DeFrancis, John, ed. The ABC [Alphabetically Based Computerized] Chinese-English Dictionary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1996. ISBN 0-8248-2766-X
Giles, Herbert A., ed. A Chinese-English Dictionary. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1892. 2nd. ed. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1912.
Hanyu da zidian bianji weiyuanhui 汉语大字典编辑委员会, eds. Hanyu da zidian (汉语大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters"). 8 vols. Wuhan: Hubei cishu chubanshe. 1986-1989.
Hixson, Sandra and James Mathias. (1975). A Compilation of Chinese Dictionaries. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications.
Karlgren, Bernhard, ed. Grammata Serica Recensa. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. 1957.
Liang Shiqiu [Liang Shih-chiu] 梁實秋, ed. Far East English-Chinese Dictionary. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1975. ISBN 957-612-041-1
Liang Shiqiu and Zhang Fangjie [Chang Fang-chieh] 張芳杰, eds. Far East Chinese-English Dictionary. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1971. ISBN 957-612-463-8
Lin Yutang, ed. Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1972.
Lu Erkui 陸爾奎, ed. Ciyuan (辭源 "Sources of Words"). Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1915. Rev. ed. 1939.
Lu Shuxiang 吕叔湘, ed. Xiandai Hanyu cidian (现代汉语词典 "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1973. ISBN 7-100-03477-9
Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風, ed. Hanyu da cidian (汉语大词典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese"). 12 vols. Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe. 1986-1994. ISBN 7-5432-0013-9
Mathews, Robert H., ed. Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. 1931. Rev. American ed. 1943. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mathias, James, Thomas Creamer, and Sandra Hixson. (1982). Chinese Dictionaries: An Extensive Bibliography of Dictionaries in Chinese and Other Languages. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313235058
Medhurst, Walter, ed. A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language: According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms: Containing about 12,000 Characters Macao: East India Company. 1832. Reprint Ganesha. 2006. ISBN 1-86210-067-5
Medhurst, Walter, ed. Chinese and English dictionary: Containing all the words in the Chinese imperial dictionary, arranged according to the radicals. Batavia: Parapattan. 1842.
Morrison, Robert, ed. A dictionary of the Chinese language. Macao: East India Company. 1815-1823. Part 1: Chinese and English arranged according to the radicals; Part 2: Chinese and English arranged alphabetically; Part 3: English and Chinese.
Norman, Jerry. Chinese. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1988. ISBN 0521296536
Shu Xincheng 舒新城, ed. Cihai (辭海 "Sea of Words"). 3 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1936.
Wei Jiangong 魏建功, ed. Xinhua zidian (新华字典 "New China Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1953. 10th rev. ed. Beijing: Commercial Press. 2004. ISBN 7-100-03931-2
Williams, Samuel, ed. A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, arranged according to the Wu-fang yuan yin, with the pronunciation of the characters as heard in Peking, Canton, Amoy and Shanghai. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. 1874. Reprint Ganesha. 2001. ISBN 1-86210-021-7
Xu Yuan'gao 徐元誥, ed. Zhongwen Da Zidian (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"). 4 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1915.
Yang, Paul Fu-mien. Chinese Lexicology and Lexicography: A Selected and Classified Bibliography. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 1985. ISBN 962-201-312-0
Zhongguo cidian bianzuanchu 中國辭典編纂處, eds. Guoyu cidian (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language"). 8 vols. Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1937.