A Dictionary of Chinese Allusions (Cihai Edition) - New Edition

Author: Yu Wanli
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: Tailored for students' college entrance and high school entrance exams, this Chinese reference book has been a bestseller across the country, with sales reaching 1,200,000 copies. In terms of content, the old version has been optimized according to the new teaching requirements, emphasizing innovation, origin, cultivation, and practicality. In terms of format, the new design uses a two-color printing to achieve a sense of solemnity, elegance, liveliness, and novelty. This dictionary primarily includes factual entries, with a limited number of idiomatic entries. It contains nearly 800 entries of classical allusions, supplemented by over 2,000 variant forms. Each allusion is listed 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.
Each entry includes the following: the name of the allusion, pinyin pronunciation, annotations for obscure or difficult characters, the origin of the allusion, 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 or linking sounds. Annotations for obscure or difficult characters in the allusion name are placed after the pronunciation. Annotations for 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's literary sources, the origin of the allusion is narrated in concise language, with relevant background information 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 fixed forms.
The main body of the dictionary is arranged in Pinyin order. At the end of the book, there is an index of allusion names, and an index of all variant forms in Pinyin is also provided.