Erya

Erya is an early Chinese lexicon that explains words and groups terms by subject. Traditionally, it is counted among the Thirteen Classics.

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Chinese lexicography: The study and practice of compiling dictionaries and other word-reference works in Chinese. Erya is an early landmark in the Chinese tradition of defining and classifying words.
Chinese dictionary: A reference work that records Chinese words, characters, meanings, or pronunciations in an organized format. Unlike many later dictionaries, Erya chiefly arranges entries by related subject matter.
Zhou dynasty: A Chinese dynasty conventionally dated from 1046 to 256 BCE, associated with major political and cultural change. Some material in Erya preserves vocabulary associated with the Zhou period.
Chinese historical linguistics: The study of the history and development of the Chinese languages and their varieties. Erya supplies early lexical evidence for tracing Chinese words and meanings.
Chinese classics: Texts that have served as foundational works of Chinese intellectual, literary, and educational traditions. Erya became a canonical reference alongside works central to classical learning.
Semantic field: A group of words whose meanings are related within a shared conceptual domain. Erya’s subject-based sections bring related terms together as semantic groups.
Warring States period: The era of competing Chinese states conventionally dated from 475 to 221 BCE. The lexicon’s compilation is often connected with the intellectual world of this era.
Old Chinese: The ancestor language reconstructed for the Chinese varieties spoken during the early and middle first millennium BCE. Erya’s glosses provide evidence used in reconstructing early Chinese vocabulary.
Thirteen Classics: A traditional collection of thirteen texts central to the Confucian canon and later Chinese scholarship. Erya’s canonical status comes from its inclusion in this collection.
Synonymy: A relationship in which different words have the same or closely related meanings. Several Erya entries explain one expression through another regarded as equivalent.