This paper aims at providing a general description for DIADORIM, a lexical database for Brazilian Portuguese. DIADORIM is said to successively merge two very different previous application-oriented dictionaries, increasing their user-friendliness, the reusability of their entries and their capability of incorporating new features. Besides improving the structure of the previous databases, DIADORIM also preserves their performance and functionality, as indicated in the real use and simulation tests carried out during its evaluation.