Electronic dictionary system

A concept dictionary management device comprising:

• a fundamental concept dictionary data holding means for holding fundamental concept network connection information which represents fundamental concept network connections among words stored in a concept dictionary and can be used by all users of the concept dictionary but can be changed only by permitted users;
• first supplemental concept dictionary data holding means for holding first supplemental concept network connection information to be used for adding and deleting first concept network connections to and from the fundamental concept network connections represented by the fundamental concept network connection information, correspondingly to a field of utilization of the concept dictionary;
• second supplemental concept dictionary data holding means for holding second supplemental concept network connection information to be used only for personal use, to add and to delete one or more second concept network connections to and from the concept network connections resulting from addition or deletion of the first concept network connections to the fundamental concept network connections;
• concept dictionary retrieval means for retrieving a concept network connection including an input word from at least one of the fundamental concept dictionary data holding means, the first supplemental concept dictionary data holding means and the second supplemental concept dictionary data holding means;
• and
• operation control means for receiving concept network connection information representing the concept network connection retrieved by the concept dictionary retrieval means and for extracting information representing a word from the received network connection information and outputting data indicating the extracted word to the concept dictionary retrieval means as data indicating an input word.