“Encyclopædia”一词最早出自希腊语“ἐνκύκλιoς”(拉丁轉寫:enkyklios,意为“循环的,周期性,平常的”)和“παιδεία”(paideia,指“教育”)。含义是“普通教育,从字面上说就是一个想接受通才教育的人所应该学习的艺术和科学知识”[6]。古罗马学者昆体良在其《演说术教程》(Institutio oratoria)中用该词表示综合教育[7]:40。在抄录过程中谬传为新拉丁语词encyclopædia,随后又进入英语,最先记载於1531年[6]。在新拉丁语中该词被选中作为一本覆盖各科知识的参考著作的书名。这个詞首次出現在一般文學作品的記錄見於1532年法國作家弗朗索瓦·拉伯雷的《巨人傳》[8][9],仍然是教育之意[7]:40。1559年保罗·斯卡利杰在巴塞尔出版的《百科全书,或神与世俗学科知识》(Encyclopaedia seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam prophanarum epistemon)中首次使用“百科全书”作为书名[7]:40。但是这本书知者甚少,因此也有人认为是拿骚的阿斯特德(Johann Heinrich Alsted)在1630年出版的《七卷本简明百科全书》(Encyclopaedia, Septem Tomis Distincta)是第一个把“百科全书”用作书名[7]:40-41的書籍。
阿拉伯世界的第一部百科全書是《傳統菁華》(阿拉伯语:كتاب عيون الاخبار,Kitāb ʿUyūn al-Akhbār),由伊拉克的伊本·古泰拜(أبو محمد بن قتيبة الدينوري,Ibn Qutaybah,826年-889年)主編,後由伊本·阿卜德改編為《珠練》。975年至997年,波斯學者花剌子模(ابوعبدالله محمد بن احمد بن یوسف خوارزمی کاتب,Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwārizmī)編了《科學之鑰》。其后一个宗教团体精诚兄弟会编著了一本《精诚兄弟会典》。13世纪时埃及历史学家阿尔努韦利(al-Nuwairi)用20年时间编成《文化智慧之的》。[7]:28
^Encyclopaedia. Encyclopædia Britannica. [2010-07-27]. (原始内容存档于2010-12-16). An English speakinglexicographer, H.W. Fowler, wrote in the preface to the first edition (1911) of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English language that a dictionary is concerned with the uses of words and phrases and with giving information about the things for which they stand only so far as current use of the words depends upon knowledge of those things. The emphasis in an encyclopedia is much more on the nature of the things for which the words and phrases stand.
^Hartmann, R. R. K.; Gregory, James. Dictionary of Lexicography. Routledge. 1998: 49 [2010-07-27]. ISBN 0-415-14143-5. In contrast with linguistic information, encyclopedia material is more concerned with the description of objective realities than the words or phrases that refer to them. In practice, however, there is no hard and fast boundary between factual and lexical knowledge.
^Cowie, Anthony Paul. The Oxford History of English Lexicography, Volume I. Oxford University Press. 2009: 22 [2010-08-17]. ISBN 0-415-14143-5. An 'encyclopedia' (encyclopaedia) usually gives more information than a dictionary; it explains not only the words but also the things and concepts referred to by the words.
^Bert Roest. Compilation as Theme and Praxis in Franciscan Universal Chronicles. Peter Binkley (编). Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second Comers Congress, Groningen, 1–4 July 1996. BRILL: 213. 1997. ISBN 978-90-04-10830-1.
^Sorcha Carey. Two Strategies of Encyclopaedism. Pliny's Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History. Oxford University Press. 2003: 17. ISBN 978-0-19-925913-7.