Which dictionaries can be considered as the most complete for Modern Greek?

Question

My mother tongue is French so I would prefer one in this language but I'm also interested in English ones, especially if they can be considered of much higher quality/completness.

I've heard of the Greek-French & French-Greek dictionaries written by Δημήτρης Παντελοδήμος. The first editions (1995) were published with the Kauffmann edition and the latest with the Τσιγαρίδα edition.

The 2002 Greek-French edition boasts 150,000 words while the newer mentions 140,000... so I wonder if the latest edition is the best and what happened to the 10 thousand words...

http://www.biblionet.gr/author/24409/Δημήτρης_Παντελοδήμος

Answer 1

It depends on your criteria, of course. Of the contemporary monolingual dictionaries, the Triantafyllidis and Babiniotis' are both well-regarded, for different reasons.

For comprehensiveness, there are some bigger monolingual alternatives:

• The old Dimitrakos dictionary (15 vols): not as scientific, but tries to cover all of Greek. Updated recently as the Papyros dictionary. Both online in pirated versions. Slightly better breadth even for modern Greek than the dictionaries above, which really only concentrate on contemporary current usage.
• Kriaras' dictionary of Early Modern Greek (now up to sigma; 1100-1669). Scans online for the full dictionary; the abridgement up to pi is searchable online: http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/medieval_greek/kriaras/index.html
• The Historical Dictionary of Modern Greek: primarily a dialect dictionary, goes up to delta, and the volumes before the latest are now online: http://repository.academyofathens.gr/kendi/index.php/gr