Kangxi Dictionary

Kangxi Dictionary
Kangxi Dictionary, 3rd ed. (1827)
Chinese name
Chinese	康熙字典
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Kāngxī Zìdiǎn Wade–Giles K'ang-hsi Tzu-tien Wu Romanization Khan平si入 Zy去di平 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Hōnghēi Jihdín Jyutping Hong1 hei1 zi6 din2 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Khong-hi Jī-tián
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Khang Hi tự điển
Hán-Nôm	康熙字典
Korean name
Hangul	강희자전
Hanja	康熙字典
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Ganghui Jajeon McCune–Reischauer Kanghŭi Chajŏn
Japanese name
Kanji	康熙字典
Hiragana	こうきじてん
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn Kōki Jiten

The Kangxi Dictionary (Chinese: 康熙字典; pinyin: Kāngxī zìdiǎn) is a Chinese dictionary published in 1716 during the High Qing, considered from the time of its publishing until the early 20th century to be the most authoritative reference for written Chinese characters. Wanting an improvement upon earlier dictionaries, as well as to show his concern for Confucian culture and to foster standardization of the Chinese writing system, its compilation was ordered by the Kangxi Emperor in 1710, from whom the compendium gets its name. The dictionary was the largest of its kind, containing 47,043 character entries.^[1] Around 40% of them were graphical variants, while others were dead, archaic, or found only once in the Classical Chinese corpus. In today's vernacular written Chinese, fewer than a quarter of the dictionary's characters are commonly used.^[2]

The text is available in many forms, from Qing dynasty block print editions, to reprints using traditional Chinese bookbinding, to Western-style hardcovers including revisions and ancillary essays, to a digitized version accessible via the internet.