Abstract
This article presents the prescriptive intentions and practices manifested explicitly or implicitly by the most important Romanian dictionaries. The lexicographic codification entails the selection of headwords and variant reduction, through the diachronic, diatopic, diaphasic, and diastratic labelling, and less frequently, by the explicit rejection of stigmatized forms. An important parameter of standardization is attitude towards neologisms, especially towards borrowings. Some Romanian dictionaries of the 19th century illustrate the purist codification. Standardization is operated particularly by general-purpose dictionaries, by academic historical dictionaries and only recently by dedicated normative dictionaries; the last ones codify the orthographic, orthoepic and morphological aspect of words and much less their meanings. The last section presents the main prescriptive tools used nowadays (the “official” orthographic, orthoepic and morphological dictionary, the general-purpose dictionaries, etc.) and the new electronic resources.