This essay will address differences in orientation in early Japanese lexicography withregard to the Japanese rendering of definitions in a Chinese language dictionary. Most,if not all,premodern Japanese dictionaries took the form of rendering the headword in Chinese charactersand Chinese words,while also offering a Japanese reading. This does not, however, entail thatearly Japanese lexicography was entirely oriented to the Chinese language:in fact,a representativeportion of Japanese oriented language dictionaries were produced. Japanese readings inJapanese language dictionaries explain the Japanese use of the headword. Alternatively,Chinese-Japanese dictionaries, including Chinese character dictionaries, explain the Chinese usein the Japanese language. By virtue of this fact,they are not distinctive in their form. This essayattempts to distinguish which orientation a dictionary inclines to by focusing on its rendering ofdefinitions of earlier Chinese dictionaries. Here,we will examine the nature of Japanese renditionsin a Japanese dictionary,Ruiju myogi sho 類聚名義抄, cited from the Chinese characterdictionary Tenrei bansho meigi 篆隷万象名義. Our findings suggest that Japanese renditionsillustrate Chinese use rather than Japanese use, which accounts for differences in the Japanesereadings and compiling strategies of the dictionaries.