Can somebody please explain why 'dictionary' has gained such prevalence over 'lexicon' and other words?

All my lexicons have Dictionary written on the cover! Best explanation I can come up with.

And welcome aBoard, Into somethin'!

well, dictionaries sell -- had Ambrose Bierce called his work "Bierce's Aphorisms" we probably wouldn't know of it at all. early collections of words were called glossaries or vocabularies, but then they weren't really dictionaries, as they lacked definitions.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/