A Dictionary of Chinese Allusions

Author: Yu Wanli et al
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: A Chinese reference book tailor-made for students' college entrance exams (Gaokao) and high school entrance exams (Zhongkao), it was once a bestseller across the country with sales reaching 1,200,000 copies. In terms of content, the previous version was optimized according to new teaching requirements, emphasizing innovation, origin, cultivation, and practicality. In terms of format, the latest design uses a two-color printing to achieve a sense of solemnity, elegance, liveliness, and novelty. This dictionary mainly includes historical allusions, with a small selection of idiomatic allusions. It contains nearly 800 entries of allusions and lists over 2,000 variant forms. Each allusion is treated as a headword based on a common or representative example, while other variant forms are explained in the text and indexed, without being listed separately.
The content under each entry includes the name of the allusion, Pinyin pronunciation, annotations for obscure or difficult characters, the origin of the allusion story, the source of the allusion, the meaning of the allusion, and other variant forms. The name of the allusion is annotated with Pinyin, and the pronunciation uses single-character Mandarin sounds without indicating tone changes, linking, or variant pronunciations. Annotations for obscure or difficult characters in the allusion name are placed after the pronunciation, while unavoidable obscure or difficult characters in the text are either noted in parentheses or explained after the source.
Based on an accurate understanding of the allusion literature, the origin of the allusion story is narrated in concise language, and relevant background information is provided when necessary, without emphasizing a word-for-word translation. The meaning of the allusion is generally interpreted based on its common or more obvious sense. Variant forms are selected based on their common usage and more fixed forms.
The main body of this dictionary is arranged in Pinyin order. At the end of the book, there is an index of allusion names, and at the end, there is a Pinyin index of all variant forms.