If Axel Honneth's thesis is correct that "it is in fact a struggle for recognition which, as a moral force within the social reality of human life, ensures development and progress" (1992/2003: 227), then this struggle for recognition must be reflected in the vocabulary of a historical community of speakers and thus ultimately in the corresponding dictionary of meanings. Using the example of the Early New High German dictionary, this study shows how recognition relations are and how they are processed lexicographically.