The dictionary as a cultural product stands at the heart of this study, which examines nine monolingual dictionaries of English and French and their socio-cultural contexts. Of central import is the inquiry to what extent lexicographic methods can be described as culturally determined. Empirical studies demonstrate that there are systematic differences in the design of elements and structures of dictionaries stemming from different dictionary landscapes and that to a certain extent these differences have their origins in the more general contexts in which the dictionaries took shape.