The aim of this paper is to present the theoretical principles underlying the making of a lexical database of English collocations of non-specialized words used in scientific language. This project was prompted by the shortage of reference tools providing information about the use and combinatorial properties of general words in specific registers. A case study will illustrate that in scientific texts, words, especially polysemous verbs, have a distinct semantic and combinatorial behaviour. Following the assumption that the meaning and the grammatical and collocational patterns of words are interrelated, we suggest that context-specific information should be included in specialized reference tools to facilitate the written production of scientific texts by nonnative speakers ofEnglish.