Editing Kangxi Dictionary (section)

==Compilation==
In his preface to the 1716 printing, the emperor wrote:
::Every time I read widely in the commentaries on the classics, the pronunciations and meanings are complex and obscure, and each person protects his own explanations according to his individual view, so that it is not likely that any will communicate everything without gaps.  Thus I have ordered the scholar officials to acquire all the old documents, then to arrange them and revise them.{{sfnb|Billings|2007}}

The emperor chose the term {{transliteration|zh|zidian}} himself—at the time not having a meaning of 'dictionary', but rather something like a 'compendium' or 'standard' or 'model' characters, as to show their correct forms and authoritative pronunciations. The compendium was generally referred to simply as {{transliteration|zh|zidian}}, which later became a standard Chinese word for 'dictionary' in the 19th century, and used to title practically every Chinese dictionary published since then.{{sfnb|Wilkinson|2018|p=84}} [[Classical Chinese]] is largely [[morphosyllabic]] with very few [[bound morphemes]], meaning that most individual characters represented independent words. As such, the compilers did not make a distinction between senses of {{lang-zh|c=字|p=zì|labels=no}} as 'characters' versus as 'words'; this distinction would only begin to be clearly made during the late 19th century.{{sfnb|Wilkinson|2018|p=34}}

The original editors included [[Zhang Yushu]] (1642–1711), [[Chen Tingjing]] (1639–1712), and a further staff of thirty men. However, both Zhang and Chen died within a year of their appointment to the task, and the work was taken up by scholars of the [[Hanlin Academy]]. The compilation was based partly on two [[Ming dynasty]] dictionaries: the 1615 ''[[Zihui]]'' by Mei Yingzuo, and the 1627 ''[[Zhengzitong]]'' by Zhang Zilie.{{sfnb|Wilkinson|2018|p=85}}

The imperial edict required that the project be completed within a five-year span. As such, errors were inevitable. Although the emperor's preface said "each and every definition is given in detail and every single pronunciation is provided".<ref>Tr. Creamer 1992: 117.</ref><ref>Mair 1998: 169.</ref> The scholar-official [[Wang Xihou]] (1713–1777) criticized the ''Kangxi Zidian'' in the preface of his own {{transliteration|zh|Ziguan}} dictionary. When the [[Qianlong Emperor]]—Kangxi's grandson—was informed of this insult in 1777, he sentenced Wang's entire family to death by the [[nine familial exterminations]], the most extreme form of capital punishment.<ref>Creamer 1992: 117.</ref> However, as was fairly typical in such cases with literary inquisition, the emperor commuted the sentence by pardoning all of Wang's relatives, and his grandsons given only a procedural sentence of execution at the autumn assizes ({{transliteration|zh|qiushen}}), during which the case would be reviewed and usually spared actual execution. Wang's own sentence would be commuted from [[death by a thousand cuts]], to merely death by beheading.<ref>李雪涛《一位传教士记载的王锡侯〈字贯〉案》</ref> The later [[Daoguang Emperor]] appointed [[Wang Yinzhi]] (1766–1834) and a review board to compile an officially sanctioned supplement to the ''Kangxi Zidian'', which was published in 1831 as the {{transliteration|zh|Zidian kaozheng}} ({{lang|zh-Hant|字典考證}}), correcting 2,588 mistakes mostly found in quotations and citations.<ref>Teng and Biggerstaff 1971:130</ref>

[[File:Kangxi Dictionary 1827.JPG|thumb|left|An 1827 version of the ''Kangxi Dictionary'']]
The supplemented dictionary contains 47,035 distinct character entries, in addition to 1,995 [[Variant Chinese character|graphical variants]], giving a total of 49,030 different characters. They are grouped according to a list of 214 [[Radical (Chinese character)|radicals]], and further sorted by the number of additional strokes in the character. Although this particular set of 214 radicals was first used in the ''[[Zihui]]'', they are now largely known as the [[List of Kangxi radicals|Kangxi radicals]], and remain popular as a method of categorizing Chinese characters.

The character entries provide definitions and pronunciations in both traditional [[fanqie]] spelling and with a modern [[homophone]], as well as example quotations from the Chinese corpus, and lists of any variants and differing meanings. The compendium also contains [[rime table]]s with characters ordered by [[syllable rime]] classes, [[Tonal language|tone]]s, as well as initial [[syllable onset]]s.

The missionary [[Walter Henry Medhurst]], an early translator of the Bible into Chinese, compiled ''[[Medhurst's Chinese and English Dictionary]]'' (1842–1843) in two volumes, with Chinese sourced from the ''Kangxi Dictionary''.{{sfnb|Wilkinson|2018|p=89}}

The dictionary is one of several used by the [[Ideographic Research Group]] for the [[Unicode]] standard.