- An international project: This dictionary forms part of an international project under the auspices of the Union Académique Internationale to replace the old dictionary of medieval Latin, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis of DuCange (first published in 1688). Each European country was to prepare its own dictionary based on its "national" authors and sources. - The first new dictionary completed: Publication of the dictionary began in 1970, since when more than 60 fascicles have appeared. Complete in 2005 it will comprise 5300 folio pages. - A record of word use: The importance of the Lexicon Latinitatis Nederlandicae Medii Aevi lies not just in recording and translating Latin words but in bringing together many instances of use. - A research tool: It is thus a research tool for historians, intellectual historians and philologists, giving them a sense of the range of meaning of words, of how writers of a particular time and place used a certain word, and allowing them to better understand the authors whose works they are reading. - With broad European relevance: Latin was an international medium with Latin correspondence, scholarship and literature circulating throughout medieval Europe so that Lexicon Latinitatis Nederlandicae Medii Aevi sheds much light on Latin in use far beyond the borders of the modern Netherlands.