Elhuyar Hizkuntza Zerbitzuak

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Dictionary Consultation Content

This service will enable you to consult these three dictionaries of the Elhuyar Foundation:

Dictionary	Languages	Features
Elhuyar Hiztegi Handia	Basque-Spanish / Spanish-Basque	90,280 entries 20,795 sub-entries 149,358 senses 76,306 examples
Dictionnaire Elhuyar	Basque-French / French-Basque	36,672 entries 3,813 sub-entries 55,146 senses 889 examples
Elhuyar Dictionary	Basque-English / English-Basque	28,634 entries 3,372 sub-entries 50,197 senses 14,754 examples

How to conduct a search

First, look at the list in the search box on the right (Basque, Spanish, French or English) and select the language in which you want to conduct a search. If you choose Basque, you can consult the contents of the three dictionaries, and you will see that the boxes of the three target languages to the right of them are ticked. If you don’t want the contents of one of these languages to be displayed in the results of the consultation, simply disable the box. If you choose Spanish, French or English from the list of languages, you will see that the only target language on the right is Basque.

After that, in the search box write the word, term, expression or else the character or sequence of characters you are looking for. With the Add % at the end choice enabled, you will find all the entries and sub-entries that start with the character or group of characters (sub-entries are the entries organised within the main entry, and they are mainly multi-word ones, like compound words, multi-word terms, expressions, grammar structures, etc.). For example, to find the entries and sub-entries starting with azpi-, all you have to do is write the word azpi in the box, and click on the Search button or press the Intro key, as long as the Add % at the end option has been enabled. If you don’t want the Add % at the end to be applied automatically, you need to disable the Add % at the end option. However, if you want to find words with a particular ending, disable the Add % at the end, write % at the beginning of the search box followed by whatever ending you want. For example, if you write %pen in the search box, you will find the entries and sub-entries that end in –pen.

Result

The first result of a search is a list of the entries and sub-entries that fulfil the search conditions, and it will appear at the top, below the heading Entries and sub-entries. The list is in alphabetical order (in the multi-word entries, the hyphen in compound words is not taken into account when alphabetical order is applied; but the space is).

When you click on an entry or sub-entry in the list, the information in the dictionaries appears below. The article of a main entry is organised into senses. The senses have the following structure:

• Sense number Part of speech Basque dialect or geographical area Usage label Field label Semantic label
• Equivalents
• Examples

In the English entries, pronunciation appears before the senses.

Information on the Basque dialects or geographical area is provided in the Basque and English entries. In Basque, in addition to the dialect symbols (B, BN, G, GN, L, Z), the symbols denoting the geographical areas Ipar. (Northern Basque Country) and Heg. (Southern Basque Country) are used. In English, symbols indicate American English and British English forms (Am and Br, respectively).

On the other hand, the Equivalents section is also structured. The equivalents of each sense are organised into groups of equivalent terms on the basis of the level of equivalence between them and separated by a semicolon. Essential information has been added to the groups of equivalent terms, by means of usage labels, symbols for geographical areas and semantic labels. Some examples:

ahoskera

• iz.
• [hitzak, hotsak] pronunciación, articulación; [ahotsa] entonación, modulación.
• Euskal kontsonanteen ahoskera: la pronunciación de las consonantes vascas.
• Ahoskera ez zen hain maitekorra: su modo de hablar no era tan cariñoso.

biográfico, -a

• adj.
• biografiko; biografia- (hitz-elkarteetan)
• Datos biográficos: biografia-datuak, datu biografikoak.

gustu

• iz. zaporea
• taste; flavour (Br); flavor (Am)

After the sense, the sub-entries linked to the main entry are listed. If you click on any one of them, information on them is displayed. The structure of the senses of the sub-entries is similar to that of the entries.

This way we can reach the information about the sub-entry through the main entry; but it is not the only way. In fact, as pointed out at the beginning, the entries and sub-entries are displayed in the results of the dictionary consultation (the so-called Entries and sub-entries). So we can go straight to a sub-entry through the list. When we click on the sub-entry we want to consult, the content corresponding to it alone will appear below, not that of the whole entry. However, in the dictionary this sub-entry as well as what is contained in the entry is specified above it, and a link will take us straight there.

In the equivalents of the entries and sub-entries, the appearance of Ik. xxx indicates that xxx is the accepted spelling in standard Basque. But if h. xxx appears, it means that xxx is the preferred spelling. On the other hand, when xxx appears, it means that the information is available in the xxx entry.

Abbreviations

List of Abbreviations in PDF format.

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