"DICO": An Online Dictionary Consultation Tool

DICO, developed at ISSCO (Geneva), is network-based software for the retrieval of lexical entries from multiple monolingual and bilingual dictionaries by many users simultaneously. Two interfaces are available, one for X-Windows and the other for standard terminals. Primary indexes concern headwords, but secondary indexes are also available for domain information, for definitions and translations of the headwords, and for synonyms. Displays show either the full encoded source or a concise, formatted representation. While devised for a multilingual society today, DICO also has promise in opening up early bilingual dictionaries, such as Randle Cotgrave's, in which information about one of the languages is hard to access, contained as it is in the explanatory field of an entry.