Finding that the Ge’ez lexicons of his day were unable to keep up with the pace of his research, August Dillmann composed this dictionary in 1865 as a new standard for scholars of Ethiopic, a much-understudied Christian heritage that has contributed its own literature, art, theology, and Biblical texts. With the help of Werner Munzinger, a specialist in Tigrean, Dillmann compiled the oldest and best Ethiopic manuscripts to collect vocabulary and update contemporary interpretations of Ge’ez grammar, drawing from works as diverse as poetry, theology, medicine, civil and canon law, and science to make his lexicon as comprehensive as possible. Created in a time when great lexicons were emerging in all sorts of fields, Dillmann’s work was designed to give his colleagues the same advantages that scholars in Hebrew and Syriac had.