Abstract: An electronic dictionary comprising an input device, a display, a dictionary memory, a searching device, and an indicator device. The memory consists of plural divisions of equal storage capacity and stores multiple sets of word data representative of different words in an alphabetical order. Each set of word data is stored in one of the plural divisions such that each of the divisions has at its end a waste portion storing no part of any of the multiple sets of word data, if the number of characters of the first set of word data stored in the following division is larger than the number of characters which may be stored in the waste portion.

Abstract: An electronic dictionary in which a plurality of word data each representing an English word are stored in a predetermined order and each word data comprises a data division and an additional division. Each data division includes a combination of one or more parts among a first compressed part, a second compressed part and a third compressed part; the first compressed part being a code indicating the number of first characters that are common between an English word represented by the corresponding word data and the English word whose corresponding word data is stored just before the word data in the electronic dictionary; the second compressed part being a code indicating a suffix which appears in English words, and the third compressed part being a sequence of codes each representing each alphanumerical character not represented by a first or second part code.