From the ninth volume, the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (henceforth WAT) moved away from a more encyclopaedic presentation of information. Theorists reacted positively to this change of direction. The opinion was, however, also expressed that the WAT, as far as lexicographic function is concerned, should concentrate more on cognitive functions, which include especially encyclopaedic information. In response to this opinion, an effort is made to establish whether the WAT has from volume nine succeeded in finding a balance between encyclopaedic and semantic information. For this purpose the focus is on Wiegand's views on the presentation of encyclopaedic information in explanatory dictionaries as well as the more traditional principle of component analysis.