A search for meaning

Lu Gusun (pictured) was the major compiler and editor of the New English-Chinese Dictionary, first published in the 1970s. The book is still available in the market after several revisions, with 10 million copies sold.

In 1975, Premiere Zhou Enlai issued a state document in his illness, assigning the job of creating China's largest bilingual dictionary. After that, Lu and his colleagues started to work on the ECD.

In 1986, Lu was appointed the chief editor. The first edition of ECD was published in September 1991. It has won many national book awards since then, and has been the major English-Chinese dictionary used by translators from the United Nations.

Shanghai Translation Publishing House decided to make an overall revision for ECD in 2001. The second edition of ECD, published in April 2007, consists of 200,000 entries and 15 million words.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/06/2007 page20)