Also in Anglicized forms, 7 cyclopædy, -pedy. [A shortening or modification of ENCYCLOPÆDIA (itself due to an erroneous Greek reading), perh. intended to convey more obviously the ostensible sense ‘circle of learning,’ from Gr. κύκλος circle + παιδεία education, a branch of learning.]
† 1. The circle of learning; the whole body of arts and sciences; = ENCYCLOPÆDIA 1. Obs.
1636. Sir H. Blount, Voy. Levant (1637), 85. This Cyclopædia hath beene observed to runne from East, to West: Thus have most Civilities, and Sciences come as some thinke, from the Indian Gymnosophists, into Egypt, from thence into Greece, so into Italy, [etc.].
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, II. (1662), 289. Nor yet was it a work of the Cyclopedy of Arts.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, To Rdr. (1686), A 6 b. The whole Learning of his time (which the Greeks call Cyclopedia).
2. A book containing extensive information on all branches of knowledge, or on all the branches of some particular art, science, etc.; usually arranged alphabetically; = ENCYCLOPÆDIA 2, 3.
1728. Chambers (title), Cyclopædia, or General Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.
1738. W. Bowyer, in Nichols, Lit. Anecd. 18th C. (1812), V. 659. While the second edition of Chambers’s Cyclopædia was in the press I went to the author and begged leave to add a single syllable to his magnificent work, and that for Cyclopædia he would write Encyclopædia…. I urged that Vossius had observed in his book de Vitiis Sermonis that ‘Cyclopædia was used by some authors, but Encyclopædia by the best.’
1878. Morley, Diderot, I. 118. He first suggested the idea of a cyclopædia on a fuller plan.
