The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary has a “Defining vocabulary” that they claim is used to write almost all definitions (I used the Fifth edition, where it is appendix 10). It’s about 8½ pages, with 5 columns of about 63 lines, so about 2,700 words.
It doesn’t list inflections, proper names, adjectives for colors such as yellowish and words used in an entry that derive from that entry (the dictionary mentions blearily and bleary-eyed being used in the definition of bleary)
They also say they occassionally had to use a word not in the list, but don’t say how often they had to. Those words _are_ defined in the dictionary, so it is possible that the reference graph does not have any cycles.
It doesn’t list inflections, proper names, adjectives for colors such as yellowish and words used in an entry that derive from that entry (the dictionary mentions blearily and bleary-eyed being used in the definition of bleary)
They also say they occassionally had to use a word not in the list, but don’t say how often they had to. Those words _are_ defined in the dictionary, so it is possible that the reference graph does not have any cycles.
So, I guess 3,000 is a good first guess.