LAD

Default Search

  • Enter
    Opens the highlighted autocomplete suggestion (the first one unless you move the highlight with the arrow keys).
  • Ctrl + Enter
    Runs a full search across the whole database — lemmas, definitions, quotes, translations, notes, and AHw/CAD raw content (⌘ + Enter on a Mac; Ctrl + click on the Search button does the same, a plain click acts as Enter).
  • Akkadian:
    Lemmas and variants
  • English:
    Definitions and derived senses

Search Modes

  • saru
    Flexible: finds šarru, saru, šāru (ignores diacritics and gemination)
  • sarru
    Semi-flexible: finds šarru, ṣarru (respects gemination, ignores diacritics)
  • šarru
    Exact: finds only šarru (respects all diacritics)

Wildcards

  • paru
    Matches "paru" or words starting with "paru"
  • paru*
    Starts with: words starting with "paru"
  • *paru
    Ends with: words ending with "paru"
  • *paru*
    Contains: words containing "paru" anywhere
  • par?
    Single character: "par" + any one character
  • par@
    Consonant: "par" + any single consonant
  • par#
    Vowel: "par" + any single vowel

Field-specific Search

  • en:mule
    English definitions only
  • de:Maultier
    German definitions only
  • fr:mule
    French definitions only
  • ar:بغل
    Arabic definitions only
  • root:PRʾ
    Root search (supports wildcards)
  • pos:verb
    Part of speech
  • lemma:parû
    Lemma only (no variants)
  • variant:alamattu
    Variants only
  • log:ANŠE
    Logogram search
  • domain:
    Semantic domain — type the colon to list values
  • topic:
    Attestation topic — type the colon to list values
  • ANŠE.KUR.RA
    ALL CAPS triggers logogram search

Attestations search

  • att:bib:KAR 158
    Attestations that cite a text. Type att: and a reference: the list shows the attestations in the order of the text — the reference (for a field search, the matched words), the entry and its meaning. Enter opens the highlighted entry at that attestation; Ctrl+Enter lists them all and searches CAD and AHw for the plain reference.
  • att:akk:šarrum
    The Akkadian text of the attestation. Diacritics are ignored, so sarrum finds šarrum and ba-la-tu finds ba-la-ṭu.
  • att:tr:king
    The translation of the attestation.
  • att:mus:BM 34160
    Museum number. Spaces, dots and hyphens are ignored, so BM 34160, BM.34160 and BM34160 all match.
  • att:src:ebl
    The project a passage is linked to: ebl, seal, archibab, cal.
  • att:period:ob
    Attestations of a period, by the id of the period list: oakk, ob, mb, sb, nb, lb, oa, ma, na … A short id also takes its sub-periods (ob → ob_onwards, oblit, oblex).
  • att:lemma:šarrum
    Attestations belonging to one entry, by its lemma or its entry id.
  • att:bib:ARM period:ob
    Fields combine, each one narrowing the search further. This gives the Old Babylonian attestations from ARM; att:akk:šarrum period:nb the Neo-Babylonian ones containing šarrum.
  • att:KAR 158
    Without a field, every attestation field is searched at once.

Local LAD

1. LAD can be read without a server and without an internet connection. The copy is the website as plain HTML pages: every entry as it stood on the day of the build, one page each, the pages of the About and Resources sections, the search field, and the TEI file of every entry. Nothing is installed: unpack the archive and open

index.html

in a browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari). The copy leaves out, and links to on the website instead, the Akkadisches Handwörterbuch and the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, which LAD may display but not redistribute, the full-text search through attestations and translations, and the archived versions of the entries.

Download

2. The newest build is always

api/v1/offline/lad-offline-latest.zip

and the build before it stays available under its date, lad-offline-2026-10-12.zip, until the next one is made. A build is made once a week; the date stands on every page of the copy. The archive is large, since it holds every entry as a page together with the fonts, styles and images of the website.

How it works

3. The copy is built from the live dictionary: the server renders every entry with the same stylesheets as the website and packs the pages with everything they need, so that a page opened from disk looks and behaves as it does online. The search field finds entries by headword, variant, root and meaning and opens them; a typed LAD number opens its entry. What the copy does not hold leads to the website, and the copy says so every time.

4. An entry page can be read and printed like any web page; its TEI file lies in the folder tei/, named by the LAD number. To cite the dictionary, cite the website: an entry in the copy carries the same number and the same citation as online (see How to cite). The copy is published under the licence of the dictionary, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: a copy of LAD is a copy, not a new edition.

The application

5. A full download with the functionality of the application, for a server of your own, is possible in collaboration with the project (see Contact). A desktop application that installs the copy and keeps it up to date by itself is under consideration.