"Early English dictionaries Before Samuel Johnson's two-volume ""A Dictionary of the English Language"", published in 1755 and considered the most authoritative and influential work of early English lexicography, there were other early English dictionaries: more than a dozen had been published during the preceding 150 years. This article lists the most significant ones. This was a Latin-English dictionary, not a monolingual dictionary, published in 1538 and dedicated to Henry VIII. 1542 saw an enlarged second edition. Composed by Richard Mulcaster, headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School in London, The Elementarie is now viewed as an important forerunner of the first actual"
"were suspected of spending even more. Politicians wrote papers, wrote into papers, and supported papers, and it was well known that some of the periodicals, like ""Mist's Journal,"" were party mouthpieces. The 18th century was a time of enlightenment progression occurring in all intellectual fields. However, the English language was deteriorating into a tangled mess. A group of London booksellers commissioned well-known essayist Samuel Johnson to compile a set of rules governing the English Language. After nine years and the help of six assistants the first edition of ""A Dictionary of the English Language"" was published in 1755. Johnson's great"
"years of work, Johnson's ""A Dictionary of the English Language"" was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as ""one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship."". Through works such as the ""Dictionary, his edition of Shakespeare, and his ""Lives of the Poets"" in particular, he helped invent what we now call English Literature"". This period of the 18th century saw the emergence of three major Irish authors Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816), and Laurence Sterne (1713–68). Goldsmith settled in London in 1756, where he published the novel ""The Vicar"
"George William Lemon The Reverend George William Lemon (1726 – 4 October 1797) was the author of an early etymological dictionary of the English language, published in 1783. Lemon graduated from Queens College, Cambridge in 1748. He was Rector of Geytonthorpe, Vicar of East Walton, Norfolk from 1755, and master of Norwich School from 1769 to 1778. Lemon married Elizabeth Young (1735–1804) on 31 May 1760. Both are buried in East Walton. Lemon considered the English language as founded on six older idioms: The entries consequently focus on English words of Latin or Greek derivation. Twenty years before the discovery"
"words with careful distinctions, compiled by William Lloyd. Elisha Coles published his ""English Dictionary"" in 1676. It was not until Samuel Johnson's ""A Dictionary of the English Language"" (1755) that a more reliable English dictionary was produced. Many people today mistakenly believe that Johnson wrote the first English dictionary: a testimony to this legacy. By this stage, dictionaries had evolved to contain textual references for most words, and were arranged alphabetically, rather than by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement, which meant all animals would be grouped together, etc.). Johnson's masterwork could be judged as the first to bring"
"An Universal Etymological English Dictionary An Universal Etymological English Dictionary was a dictionary compiled by Nathan Bailey (or Nathaniel Bailey) and first published in London in 1721. It was the most popular English dictionary of the eighteenth century. As an indicator of its popularity it reached its 20th edition in 1763 and its 27th edition in 1794. Its last edition (30th) was in 1802. It was a little over 900 pages long. In compiling his dictionary, Bailey borrowed greatly from John Kersey's ""Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum"" (1706), which in turn drew from the later editions of Edward Phillips's ""The New World of"
"A New English Dictionary A New English Dictionary: or, a complete collection of the most proper and significant words, commonly used in the language was an English dictionary compiled by philologist John Kersey and first published in London in 1702. Unlike previous dictionaries, which had focused on documenting difficult words, ""A New English Dictionary"" was one of the first to focus on words in common usage. It was also the first to be written by a professional lexicographer. Kersey later continued his lexicographic career by enlarging Edward Phillips' ""The New World of English Words"" in 1706 and editing the ""Dictionarium"
"to his growing deafness. In 1755 he and Samuel Johnson had a dispute over ""A Dictionary of the English Language"". Eight years previously (1747), Johnson had sent then Secretary of State Chesterfield, an outline of his ""Dictionary"", along with a business offer for such; Chesterfield agreed and invested ₤10 pounds. Although Chesterfield wrote two anonymous articles for ""World"" magazine shortly before the dictionary's publication which praised both Johnson's exhaustive editorial work and the comprehensive dictionary itself, Johnson was disappointed at the little to no interest in the project from Lord Chesterfield during its compilation. Upset with what he saw as"
"work of Edward Phillips, a nephew of the poet John Milton. Phillips shamelessly lifted many of the entries in ""The New World"" from Blount's work, and his plagiarism did not pass unnoticed, as in 1673 Blount published ""A World of Errors Discovered in the ‘New World of Words’"". In the following years, Blount and Phillips regularly denounced each other in print, an exercise that helped to maintain the public's interest in both dictionaries. Early English dictionaries Before Samuel Johnson's two-volume ""A Dictionary of the English Language"", published in 1755 and considered the most authoritative and influential work of early English"
"Language was published in 1755. Despite the increasing consensus on spelling, the pronunciation of English words has drifted for 500 years. Sometimes this resulted in unpronounced letters, such as the ""k"" in knot, and the ""gh"" in thought. Attempts have been made to simplify the spelling of English words, but these were largely unsuccessful. One reason is that there is no centralized body regulating the English language, unlike those governing French, Italian, and German. Another reason is that the English language spread to the various colonies where the pronunciations drifted apart. After that point, no single spelling based on pronunciation"
"all these elements together, creating the first ""modern"" dictionary. Johnson's dictionary remained the English-language standard for over 150 years, until the Oxford University Press began writing and releasing the ""Oxford English Dictionary"" in short fascicles from 1884 onwards. It took nearly 50 years to complete this huge work, and they finally released the complete ""OED"" in twelve volumes in 1928. It remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day, with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months. One of the main contributors to this modern dictionary was an ex-army surgeon, William Chester"
"dictionary of all English words at any period, ""A Dictionary of the English Language"" (1755). By 1858, the need for an update resulted in the first planning for a new comprehensive dictionary to document standard English, a term coined at that time by the planning committee. The dictionary, known as the ""Oxford English Dictionary"", published its first fascicle in 1884. It attracted significant contributions from some singular minds, such as William Chester Minor, a former army surgeon who had become criminally insane and made most of his contributions while incarcerated. Whether the OED is the long-desired standard English Dictionary is"
"Dictionary of the English Language"" was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as ""one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship"". The dictionary brings Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the ""Oxford English Dictionary"" 150 years later, Johnson's dictionary is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. 1738: Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, of Birmingham, patent the roller spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton to a more even thickness, using two sets of rollers that travel at different speeds. This principle"
"the letter displayed on a table for anyone to read. The ""Dictionary"" was finally published in April 1755, with the title page acknowledging that the University of Oxford had awarded Johnson a Master of Arts degree in anticipation of the work. The dictionary as published was a large book. Its pages were nearly tall, and the book was wide when opened; it contained 42,773 entries, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions, and it sold for the extravagant price of £4 10s, perhaps the rough equivalent of £350 today. An important innovation in English lexicography was"
"of six of his seven children, and by his wife's fatal accident in 1889. From 1878 to 1884 Evans held a post as part-time Professor of Welsh at University College, Aberystwyth. Honours accrued, e.g. a D.Litt. from the University of Wales, collation as Prebendary of Llanfair (18/91) and subsequently (1889) as Chancellor of Bangor Cathedral. Evans is best known for his work on the Welsh language, including his concise English–Welsh dictionary (1858) and the extensive Dictionary (""Geiriadur Cymraeg"") which he began publishing in 1887 and on which he continued to work until his death, at which time he was working"
"and were in use in the earliest written English. The first monolingual dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's ""Table Alphabeticall"" (1604) which was followed by Edward Phillips's ""A New World of English Words"" (1658) and Nathaniel Bailey's ""An Universal Etymological English Dictionary"" (1721). These dictionaries whetted the interest of the English-speaking public in greater and more prescriptive dictionaries until Samuel Johnson published ""Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language"" (1747), which would imitate the dictionary being produced by the French Academy. He had no problem acquiring the funding, but not as a prescriptive dictionary. This was to be a grand comprehensive"
"damages. Dyche seems to have died between 1731 and 1735. Dyche's ""New General English Dictionary"" was in print from 1735 to 1798 and went through eighteen editions. His work identified as ""conspicuous"" was ""A Guide to the English Tongue,"" which was in print from its first publication in 1709 to a 48th edition in 1780, and a final print in 1830. This work was different to other similar works in that it emphasised pronunciation. Within the book words were sorted into groups where words with two syllables were further sub-divided into those that emphasised the first syllable and to those"
"at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform, where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers. Detailed"
"Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press. It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world. The second edition, comprising 21,728 pages in 20 volumes, was published in 1989. Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but it was only in 1884 that it began to be published in unbound fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of ""A New English"
"beginning of the Georgian era in 1714, but English orthography remained somewhat fluid until the publication of Johnson's ""A Dictionary of the English Language"", in 1755. The towering importance of William Shakespeare over the other Elizabethan authors was the result of his reception during the 17th and the 18th centuries, which directly contributes to the development of Standard English. Shakespeare's plays are therefore still familiar and comprehensible 400 years after they were written, but the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland, which had been written only 200 years earlier, are considerably more difficult for the average modern reader. The"
"in the 19th century and appears to coincide with the development of phonetics as a science. In 1806, Noah Webster published his first dictionary, . It included an essay on the oddities of modern orthography and his proposals for reform. Many of the spellings he used, such as ""color"" and ""center"", would become hallmarks of American English. In 1807, Webster began compiling an expanded dictionary. It was published in 1828 as ""An American Dictionary of the English Language"". Although it drew some protest, the reformed spellings were gradually adopted throughout the United States. In 1837, Isaac Pitman published his system"
"new English Dictionary. It was expected to take ten years to complete and be some 7,000 pages long, in four volumes. In fact, when the final results were published in 1928, it ran to twelve volumes, with 414,825 words defined and 1,827,306 citations employed to illustrate their meanings. In preparation for the work ahead, Murray built a corrugated-iron shed in the grounds of Mill Hill School, called the Scriptorium, to house his small team of assistants as well as the flood of slips (bearing quotations illustrating the use of words to be defined in the dictionary) which started to flow"
"Century Dictionary The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia is one of the largest encyclopedic dictionaries of the English language. The first edition was published from 1889 to 1891 by The Century Company of New York, in six, eight, or ten volume versions (originally issued in 24 fascicles) in 7,046 pages with some 10,000 wood-engraved illustrations. It was edited by Sanskrit scholar and linguist William Dwight Whitney, with Benjamin Eli Smith's assistance. It was a great expansion of the smaller ""Imperial Dictionary of the English Language"", which in turn had been based on the 1841 edition of Noah Webster's ""American Dictionary"". After"
"The English Dialect Dictionary The English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) is a dictionary of English dialects, compiled by Joseph Wright (1855–1930). ""The English Dialect Dictionary, being the complete vocabulary of all dialect words still in use, or known to have been in use during the last two hundred years; founded on the publications of the English Dialect Society and on a large amount of material never before printed"" was published by Oxford University Press in 6 volumes between 1898 and 1905. Its compilation and printing was funded privately by Joseph Wright, a self-taught philologist at the University of Oxford. Vol. 1:"
"in the whole of literature"". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford, for just over a year, but a lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for ""The Gentleman's Magazine"". His early works include the biography ""Life of Mr Richard Savage"", the poems ""London"" and ""The Vanity of Human Wishes"", and the play ""Irene"". After nine years of work, Johnson's ""A Dictionary of the English Language"" was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been acclaimed as ""one"
"The New World of English Words The New World of English Words, or, a General Dictionary is a dictionary compiled by Edward Phillips and first published in London in 1658. It was the first folio English dictionary. As well as containing common words, the dictionary featured many unusual words, foreign terms, proper nouns and other specialist terms. In total, the original edition featured 11,000 entries, increasing to 17,000 by the fifth edition in 1696. It was later revised and enlarged by John Kersey in 1706, eventually containing 38,000 entries. Kersey had already compiled his own dictionary, ""A New English Dictionary"","
"project into a plan for a full-fledged dictionary of Middle English. By 1908, he had collected a total of about 1,120,000 Chaucer slips and, realizing the enormous nature of the venue, began publishing the first letters of the dictionary in installments. Despite his work ethic and the support from a number of colleagues in Germany, France, Britain, and the U.S., he had to realize that his project would be impossible to finish. After his death, two American colleagues, John Tatlock and Arthur Kennedy, would finalize the originally planned Chaucer Concordance. Flügel's work became the foundation of the ""Middle English Dictionary"","
"The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language: ""A Complete Encyclopedic Lexicon, Literary, Scientific, and Technological"", edited by Rev. John Ogilvie (1797–1867), was an expansion of the 1841 second edition of Noah Webster's ""American Dictionary"". It was published by W. G. Blackie and Co. of Scotland, 1847–1850 in two large volumes. With the addition of a third supplement volume in 1855, Ogilvie increased Webster's 70,000 word coverage to over 100,000. He included words from science, technology, and the arts; much British usage omitted by Webster; an unusual number of provincial and Scottish words; and"
"double first class in classics and mathematics at Oxford in 1852. He was secretary to a committee appointed by the Philological Society to consider the project of a standard English dictionary, a scheme of which the New English Dictionary, published by the Clarendon Press, was the ultimate outcome. His personal researches into the subject were contained in his ""Glossarial Index to the Printed English Literature of the Thirteenth Century"" (1859). Sara Coleridge Sara Coleridge (23 December 1802 – 3 May 1852) was an English author and translator. She was the third child, out of four, and only daughter of Samuel"
"Chicago (in order to work on his ""Dictionary of American English"") and was succeeded by J. R. R. Tolkien who held the post from 1925 to 1945. Joseph Bosworth Joseph Bosworth (1788 – 27 May 1876) was an English scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language and compiler of the first major Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Born in Derbyshire in 1788, Bosworth was educated at Repton School as a 'Poor Scholar' but left in his early teens and did not go to university. Despite the lack of a degree he somehow gained sufficient academic standing for the Church of England to allow him to"
"illustrations integrated with the text, ""The Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological, and Scientific, Adapted to the Present State of Literature, Science, and Art; On the Basis of Webster's English Dictionary."" Editor John Ogilve used Webster's 1841 edition as a base, adding many new, specialized, and British words, increasing the vocabulary from ""Webster""s 70,000 to more than 100,000. In response to Joseph Worcester's groundbreaking dictionary of 1860, ""A Dictionary of the English Language"", the G. & C. Merriam Company created a significantly revised edition, ""A Dictionary of the English Language"". It was edited by Yale University professor Noah Porter and published in"
"to be known"". Samuel Johnson Jr. Samuel Johnson Jr. (March 10, 1757 – August 20, 1836) was the author of the first English dictionary compiled by an American, ""A school dictionary: being a compendium of the latest and most improved dictionaries"". It was printed in New Haven, in 1798, by Edward O'Brien. Martha Jane Gibson, from Yale University, sees Johnson Jr. as America's first lexicographer. He was a schoolteacher, born in the town of Guilford, Connecticut. Although he was a contemporary of British lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson, they were not related in any way. The coincidence of names leads many"
"A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences was published in London in 1806-7. It was originally supposed to be edited by Dr. George Gregory, Prebendary of St. Paul's. However, Gregory was too involved in his clerical affairs, so most of the material was written by an anonymous hack writer, Jeremiah Joyce. As it would turn out, another encyclopedia meant to compete with the ""Dictionary"", the British Encyclopaedia which was supposedly edited by William Nicholson, was also written mostly by an anonymous hack writer, who turned out to be the same man. The ""Dictionary"" itself was"