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Böhtlingk, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung (PW)

After the seven-volume Großes Petersburger Wörterbuch, Otto Böhtlingk produced a shorter recension on his own — the Sanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung ("in briefer form"), again in seven volumes, 1879–1889. It keeps the headword coverage but strips much of the citation apparatus and compresses the discussion, making it the more practical of the two German Petersburg dictionaries. Glosses are in German.

Code PW, repository PWK

On the website and in the source tree this dictionary's code is PW (csl-orig/v02/pw/), but its GitHub repository is named PWK. There is no sanskrit-lexicon/PW repo.

At a glance​

CodePW (GitHub repo PWK)
Full titleSanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung
AuthorOtto Böhtlingk
Year / size1879–1889 · 7 volumes · ~2141 pp
DirectionSanskrit → German
AccentsYes
Sourcecsl-orig/v02/pw/
OpenBasic · List · Advanced · Mobile
DataDownloads · Scans
csl-docpw.rst (front matter / preface)

When to use it​

Use PW when you want Böhtlingk's scholarship in a more compact form than the Großes Petersburger Wörterbuch: the same authority and German glosses, but condensed. Go to PWG instead when you need the full citation apparatus and the longest sense discussions, or to Monier-Williams (MW) for English.

Reading an entry​

PW keeps PWG's markup but trims it: Sanskrit in {#…#}, German in {%…%}, abbreviated sources in <ls>, and Greek (used for etymological comparison) in <gk>. The privative prefix a-/an- (csl-orig/v02/pw/pw.txt):

<L>2<pc>1-001-a<k1>a<k2>a˚<h>2
<hom>2.</hom> {#a˚#} vor Consonanten, {#an˚#} vor Vocalen¦ = <gk>ἀ, ἀν</gk> <ab>priv.</ab>
{#abrAhmaRa#} {%kein Brahman,%} {#anaDyAya#} {%kein Lesen,%} {#asveda#} {%schweisslos,%} …
<LEND>
In the sourceMeaning
<pc>1-001-avolume-page-column reference (vol. 1, p. 1, col. a)
<hom>2.</hom>homonym label
{#a˚#}Sanskrit (SLP1); ˚ marks a bound/combining form
<gk>ἀ, ἀν</gk>Greek, for the etymological comparison
{%kein Brahman,%}German gloss

See Data Formats for the full markup reference.

What makes it distinctive​

  • The practical Petersburg dictionary. Same lemma coverage as PWG, far less apparatus.
  • One author. Böhtlingk alone (Roth was co-author only of the larger work).
  • Etymological notes. Greek and other comparanda appear inline via <gk>/<lang>.

See also​