@timbray Some dictionaries are very sparing with main entries, grouping related words (like adverb forms) behind a single headword. On the flip side, in languages like German that readily form compound words, at least the more common ones might be given their own entry, thus inflating the word count compared to languages like English. I suspect such features can account for at least a factor 3 in word count differences. Still, the number says something about the effort put into making it.

@timbray I wonder why the Tamil dictionary has twice as many words as English; the latter, after all, has unusually many words by virtue of its history of absorbing bits of other languages. Perhaps the Tamil dictionary lists separate declinations of words, or includes place names...

#Tamil

@timbray
You would think the largest japanese dictionary in existence would have the vocabulary for a more evocative name than "Big dictionary of the japanese language".

@timbray This is puzzling because for example, in Dutch unlike in English, most combined words are one word.

For example, swimming pool in Dutch is zwembad, which is a common word that is in most Dutch dictionaries.

So I would have guessed that Dutch dictionaries would have a lot more words than the English ones but it’s the opposite. 🤔