Introduction

Abstract

In the speech he gave on the occasion of his admission to the Academy, Don Julio Casares explained that he knew what a dictionary should not be like, but he was not sure what it should be like1. The development that theoretical and practical lexicography has undergone over the almost one hundred years that separate us from the moment when Don Julio read his speech has led us to acquire more confidence in the configuration that a dictionary should have, while at the same time we have technical means, previously unthinkable, to achieve it. As a result of all this, there is now an awareness that the creation of dictionaries cannot be in the hands of amateurs.
It requires linguistic knowledge that allows the development of a work that must opt, on the one hand, for knowledge of the reality of the use of the terms and, on the other hand, for the possibility of applying to their description the models that adequately explain the meaning and use of the words.