Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary — revised & enlarged (AP)
AP is the Revised and Enlarged edition of Vaman Shivram Apte's Practical
Sanskrit-English Dictionary — the larger, later successor to AP90 (the 1890 first
edition). Prepared after Apte's death by P. K. Gode and C. G. Karve and published
1957–1959, it runs to ~1768 pages (against AP90's 1196) and is prized for its
finely divided, numbered senses and abundant quotations with sources. Glosses are in
English; the direction is Sanskrit → English.
At a glance
| Code | AP (GitHub repo AP) |
| Full title | The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary (revised & enlarged edition) |
| Author / editors | Vaman Shivram Apte; revised & enlarged by P. K. Gode and C. G. Karve |
| Year / size | 1957–1959 · ~1768 pages |
| Direction | Sanskrit → English |
| Accents | No |
| Source | csl-orig/v02/ap/ |
| Open | Basic · List · Advanced · Mobile |
| Data | Downloads |
| csl-doc | ap.rst (front matter / preface) |
AP (this page) — the 1957–1959 revised & enlarged Sanskrit→English edition.
AP90 — the 1890 first edition, smaller. AE (repo
ApteES) — Apte's English→Sanskrit
Student's dictionary, the reverse direction. For reading Sanskrit, AP is the fullest
Apte; reach for AP90 for the leaner classic and AE to compose Sanskrit.
When to use it
Reach for AP when you want Apte's coverage at its fullest — the revised edition adds
material throughout and divides meanings into many clearly numbered senses, each
typically backed by a quotation. It complements:
- Monier-Williams (MW) — broader and more encyclopaedic, and it marks Vedic accents.
- AP90 — the leaner 1890 edition; use it when you want the classic, or to compare the two Apte recensions.
- Böhtlingk-Roth (PWG) — the deepest scholarly treatment, in German.
Looking up a word
Open the Basic display, choose your input/output transliteration (see Encoding & Transliteration), and type the headword. The List and Advanced displays browse the headword index and search inside entries — see Search & Display.
Reading an entry
Apte sets Sanskrit in {#…#} (SLP1), italic in {%…%}, bold in {@…@}, and tags
literary sources with <ls>. The hallmark of the revised edition is the ∙² sense
markers, which number the senses within an entry. The entry aṃśumat "radiant; (m.) the
sun" (csl-orig/v02/ap/ap.txt):
<L>13<pc>0002-1<k1>aMSumat<k2>aMSumat<e>1
{#aMSumat#}¦ {%<lex>a.</lex>%} [{#aMSu-astyarTe matup#}]
∙²1 Luminous, radiant; {#jyotizAM raviraMSumAn#} <ls>Bg. 10. 21</ls>.
∙²2 Pointed.
∙²3 Fibrous, abounding in filaments (<ab>Ved.</ab>) {%<lex>m.</lex>%}
| In the source | Meaning |
|---|---|
<pc>0002-1 | page-column reference (p. 2, col. 1 — AP numbers columns 1/2/3) |
{#aMSumat#} | headword / Sanskrit, in SLP1 |
{%<lex>a.</lex>%} | the grammatical label (adjective), italicised |
[{#aMSu-astyarTe matup#}] | the etymology / derivation, in Sanskrit |
∙²1, ∙²2, ∙²3 | the entry's numbered senses (1, 2, 3 …) |
<ls>Bg. 10. 21</ls> | a literary-source citation (Bhagavad-gītā 10.21), the link target |
{%<lex>m.</lex>%} | a part-of-speech shift within a sense (here to masculine — the sun) |
See Data Formats for the full markup reference.
What makes it distinctive
- The fullest Apte. The 1957–1959 revision enlarges the 1890 text by roughly half again (≈1768 vs 1196 pages).
- Finely numbered senses. The
∙²markers split each entry into many discrete, numbered meanings — easier to cite a precise sense than in the older edition. - Quotation-rich. Senses are routinely anchored to a sourced quotation (
<ls>). - Two Apte recensions, side by side. Because both
APandAP90are digitized, you can compare how a word was treated in 1890 and in the revised edition.
Headword key conventions
<k1> = <k2> = SLP1 stem (no accents — AP carries none). AP's hallmark markup is the ∙²N sense marker, which enumerates meanings finely. Page-column references use numeric column labels (1/2/3), unlike AP90's letter labels.
| Convention | Marker / form | Example | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search key | SLP1 stem, no accent | aMSumat | k1 = k2 |
| Sense marker | ∙²N | ∙²1, ∙²2, ∙²3 | The defining feature of the revised edition |
| Page reference | <pc>page-col (col = digit) | <pc>0002-1 = p. 2, col. 1 | Numeric column vs AP90's letter |
| Grammar label | {%<lex>a.</lex>%} | label inside {%…%} and <lex> | Adjective, italicised |
| Etymology | [{#derivation#}] in square brackets | [{#aMSu-astyarTe matup#}] | Sanskrit derivation, bracketed |
Abbreviations
Grammatical & general 85
Show first 60 of 85 abbreviations
| Ā. | Ātmanepada. |
| Ātm. | Ātmanepada. |
| a. | Adjective. |
| abl. | Ablative. |
| acc. | Accusative. |
| adv. | Adverb. |
| alg. | Algebra. |
| Arith. | Arithmetic. |
| A. S. | Anglo-Saxon. |
| astr. | Astronomy. |
| astrol. | Astrology. |
| Avyayi. | Avyayībhāva. |
| Bah. | Bahuvrīhi. |
| Caus. | Causal. |
| cf. | Compare. |
| Com. | Commentary. |
| Comp. | Compound. |
| dat. | Dative. |
| Den. | Denominative. |
| desid. | Desiderative. |
| du. | Dual. |
| e. g. | Exempli gratia, for example. |
| Eng. | English. |
| Etym. | Etymology. |
| Ety. | Etymology. |
| f. | Feminine. |
| fem. | Feminine. |
| fig. | Figurative. |
| fr. | From. |
| freq. | Frequentative. |
| gen. | Genitive. |
| Germ. | German. |
| Goth. | Gothic. |
| Gr. | Greek. |
| gram. | Grammar. |
| ibid. | The same. |
| i. e. | id est, that is. |
| ind. | Indeclinable. |
| inf. | Infinitive. |
| instr. | Instrumental. |
| L. | Latin. |
| lit. | Literal. |
| loc. | Locative. |
| m. | Masculine. |
| mas. | Masculine. |
| Mar. | Marathi. |
| Math. | Mathematics. |
| Medic. | Medicine. |
| n. | Neuter. |
| N. | Name. |
| Nom. | Nominative. |
| num. a. | Numeral adjective. |
| oft. | Often times. |
| opp. | Opposite of. |
| P. | Parasmaipada. |
| pass. | Passive. |
| Pers. | Persian. |
| phil. | Philosophy. |
| pl. | Plural. |
| pot. p. | Potential passive participle. |
+ 25 more — see the full list in the source file
See also
- AP90 (the 1890 edition) · Monier-Williams (MW) · Böhtlingk-Roth (PWG)
- The full catalog of all 43 dictionaries
- Abbreviations & Citations — how to cite Apte
- csl-doc ap.rst