Despite their important functions, dictionary reviews suffer from a markedly low status among scholarly publications. This paper discusses the concept of scholarly dictionary reviews and proposes some requirements to be met. An analysis is made of selected reviews and replies by dictionary authors, all published in LexicoNordica. However, this analysis reveals that many reviews and replies do not meet the requirements because they lack direct and indirect references to theoretical and academic literature, something that is a must for scholarly writings. Furthermore, the actors involved often break the chain of discourse as they are not on the same level theoretically or methodically. Nevertheless, a concerted effort by reviewers, reviewees and review-editors may lead to more scholarly reviews and replies in LexicoNordica in future. This will strengthen their quality and improve the status of dictionary reviews and reviewing.