Get information and homework help with millions of articles in our free, online library. From the seventeenth century onward — mainly through the influence of the french encyclopedists — it was used to denote the entirety of human knowledge. Four major elements define an encyclopedia
Its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production Rabelais, in pantagruel (1532), still referred to encyclopedia as a formal education and complete system of learning The meaning of encyclopedia is a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject.
Encyclopaedia, reference work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or that treats a particular branch of knowledge in a comprehensive manner For more than 2,000 years encyclopaedias have existed as summaries of extant scholarship in forms comprehensible to their readers. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world and hosted by the wikimedia foundation.
