ཚིག་མཛོད། — The most comprehensive Tibetan dictionary in existence.
Search 1.2+ million entries across 64 authoritative sources.
TermaDictionary aggregates the world's largest collection of Tibetan lexicographic sources — but aggregation is only the beginning. Deduplicating entries, resolving conflicts between sources, and matching headwords across 64 independent datasets is a massive, ongoing curation effort.
Our current system connects all sources into a single searchable index. What it still needs is a human editorial layer — expert review, conflict resolution, and a community correction mechanism. The gaps are real:
With grant support, TermaDictionary can become a living, community-curated resource — the first Tibetan dictionary with crowdsourced corrections, expert review, and transparent version history per entry. This is what it takes to build a truly authoritative, open Tibetan lexical commons.
The Tibetan Library Dictionary brings together 1,229,242 entries from 64 authoritative sources into a single, free, searchable database. Whether you're a student learning Tibetan, a scholar researching Buddhist philosophy, a translator working on sacred texts, or simply curious about Tibetan words, this dictionary provides instant access to the combined knowledge of the world's leading Tibetan lexicographic works.
Our dictionary supports three input methods: type directly in Tibetan script (བོད་ཡིག), use Wylie transliteration (the standard romanization system for Tibetan), or search in English to find Tibetan translations. The search engine simultaneously queries all 64 dictionaries, returning results organized by source so you can compare definitions across multiple authoritative references.
This dictionary combines major English-Tibetan lexicons like the Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary (73,730 entries), the historic Jäschke Dictionary from 1881 (154,112 entries), the Ives Waldo Dictionary (120,920 entries), and Jeffrey Hopkins' Buddhist terminology work (17,955 entries). It also includes the 84000 Translation Project glossaries (51,594 entries), the classical Tshig Mdzod Chen Mo (ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ) (51,030 entries), the Dungkar Encyclopedia (དུང་དཀར) (13,310 entries), and Sanskrit-Tibetan sources like the Mahāvyutpatti and Negi Sanskrit Dictionary (79,293 entries).
The dictionary is particularly strong in Buddhist philosophical terminology, with dedicated sources covering Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Abhidharma, Vinaya, and Vajrayāna traditions. The Compendium of Dharma (ཆོས་རྣམ་ཀུན་བཏུས) (11,512 entries) and Buddhist Philosophy Dictionary (བོད་རྒྱ་ནང་དོན) (8,947 entries) provide specialized definitions crucial for understanding Buddhist texts in their original language.
Most online Tibetan dictionaries draw from a single source — typically Rangjung Yeshe or Monlam alone. The Tibetan Library Dictionary is unique in unifying 64 different sources into one searchable interface. With over 1.2 million entries spanning classical Tibetan, colloquial Tibetan, Buddhist terminology, medical terminology, and modern vocabulary, no other publicly accessible Tibetan dictionary comes close in scope or depth.