Completion of the first draft

Completion of the first draft of the Dictionary

Drafting the final dictionary entry. Picture: Gareth Lloyd Hughes

On the 6th December 2001 the final draft entry for the Dictionary was written after 80 years' labour, and over half a century of drafting entries. The last word in the Dictionary is Zwinglïaidd, 'characteristic of the doctrine of the theologian Zwingli'. The final volume was published at the end of 2002.

The next step

Since the beginning of 2002, the staff of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru have been revising the earliest parts of the Dictionary which were prepared to a much more concise plan than that adopted from the end of B onwards. This will be published between 2003 and 2011 as a revised (and much expanded) second edition of A-B, incorporating much new material. The second edition will be issued in parts, as before, by the University of Wales Press, with a discount for regular subscribers to the work. Work in progress will be available for inspection here on the Dictionary's website, and during the course of the revision of A-B a concise version of the entire Dictionary will be made freely available online. (The online version will not contain the illustrative citations nor the etymologies found in the printed volumes.) Since Welsh is a living language, it is continually changing, and the editors welcome additions and corrections which will be used in future revisions of the Dictionary. This work is being jointly funded by The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the University of Wales.

Plans for the next stage of the work are currently under discussion.

1921-2009