edict

Jim Breen of Monash University in Australia began work on a voluntary project to produce a freely-available Japanese/English Dictionary in machine-readable form in 1991. The result of this work is the Edict dictionary file, a plain text document in EUC-JP coding, which has involved the voluntary help of hundreds of people. Numbering over 70,000 entries, Edict is the major free-ware Japanese-English lexicon, and a great help when perusing Japanese texts. Although not Public Domain, it is free for personal use.

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There is a similar project for the German language, called WaDoku.

E"dict (?), n. [L. edictum, fr. edicere, edictum, to declare, proclaim; e out + dicere to say: cf. F. 'edit. See Diction.]

A public command or ordinance by the sovereign power; the proclamation of a law made by an absolute authority, as if by the very act of announcement; a decree; as, the edicts of the Roman emperors; the edicts of the French monarch.

It stands as an edict in destiny. Shak.

Edict of Nantes French Hist., an edict issued by Henry IV. (A. D. 1598), giving toleration to Protestants. Its revocation by Louis XIV. (A. D. 1685) was followed by terrible persecutions and the expatriation of thousands of French Protestants.

Syn. -- Decree; proclamation; law; ordinance; statute; rule; order; manifesti; command. See Law.

© Webster 1913.