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• n  a reference work (often in several volumes) containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty

• The best are The World Book En cyclopedia, which has dominated the grade-school market in recent years, Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia and Britannica Junior Encyclopaedia.
• As a sickly eleven-year-old, John showed precocious talent as a rewriteman by compiling a children's encyclopedia from John Clark Ridpath's Cyclopedia of Universal History.
• He got an en cyclopedia from his father for neither drinking, smoking nor gambling until 21.

• encyclopedia
• encyclopaedia
• cyclopaedia