I apologize: I should have explained in more detail. You are right, of course.
The format that I used has the arrangement:"headword TAB definition" all on one line in the source file, rather than putting the definition on a separate line, but, apart from that, I used the technique that you describe.
The original text contains lots of duplicate entries; i.e. the same word is defined slightly differently in more than one place in the dictionary. Those duplicates are flagged as errors by the StarDict compiler.
For simplicity, I simply concatenated those duplicates into a single entry for each headword; after all, that is how the user is likely to see them in everyday use.
An alternative would be to use Babylon format, which puts the definition(s) on a separately line and allows multiple alternative definitions for the same headword. Personally, I don't see much advantage in doing that, because the user will see all the definitions anyway; however, it is a perfectly good technique.
Best wishes,
Alec.