The book contains a detailed analysis of the problem of author's illustrations in the new twenty-volume academic explanatory Dictionary of the Ukrainian language, the publication of which began in 2010. The author offers lexicographers more than eight thousand author's illustrations up to five and a half thousand words. For illustration, the works of many dozens of authors were used - from Grigory Skovoroda to Yevgeny Pashkovsky. Almost all of the proposed illustrations are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. A significant part of the words illustrated here are not represented at all in the registry of the first volume of the SUM-20. In addition, the author submits lists of many thousands of other words "lost" in respected Ukrainian dictionaries of the last forty years.