Methods of Lexicographic Definition in the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary

In this paper, 80 lexicographic definitions from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary are classified and evaluated, the basic question being the following: are similar words defined in similar ways? The words are classified according to part of speech, concreteness and word frequency, and eight different ways to define a word are considered. The study confirms that concreteness and part of speech have a considerable impact on the way a particular word is defined in the ALD.