HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language
dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...
edited in the early 19th century by American
lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoreti ...
Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
(1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in honor. "''Webster's''" has since become a
genericized trademark A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that, because of its popularity or significance, has become the generic term for, or synonymous with, a general class of products or ...
in the United States for English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
is the corporate heir to Noah Webster's original works, which are in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
.


Noah Webster's ''American Dictionary of the English Language''

Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
(1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books which dominated the American market at the time, spent decades of research in compiling his dictionaries. His first dictionary, ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language'', appeared in 1806. In it, he popularized features which would become a hallmark of American English spelling (''center'' rather than ''centre'', ''honor'' rather than ''honour'', ''program'' rather than ''programme'', etc.) and included technical terms from the arts and sciences rather than confining his dictionary to literary words. Webster was a proponent of
English spelling reform For centuries, there have been movements to reform the spelling of the English language. It seeks to change English orthography so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the alphabetic principle. Common motives for ...
for reasons both
philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...
and nationalistic. In ''A Companion to the American Revolution'' (2008), John Algeo notes: "it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in America, but he did not originate them. Rather ..he chose already existing options such as ''center, color'' and ''check'' on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology". In
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's
first folio ''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...
s, for example, spellings such as ''center'' and ''color'' are the most common.Venezky, Richard. ''The American Way of Spelling: The Structure and Origins of American English Orthography''. Guilford Press, 1999. p. 26 He spent the next two decades working to expand his dictionary.


First edition 1828

In 1828, when Noah Webster was 70, his ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' was published by S. Converse in two
quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...
volumes containing 70,000 entries, as against the 58,000 of any previous dictionary. There were 2,500 copies printed, at $20 (adjusted for inflation: $539.77) for the two volumes. At first the set sold poorly. When he lowered the price to $15 (adjusted for inflation: $404.82), its sales improved, and by 1836 that edition was exhausted. Not all copies were bound at the same time; the book also appeared in publisher's boards; other original bindings of a later date are not unknown.


Second edition 1841


1841 printing

In 1841, 82-year-old Noah Webster published a second edition of his lexicographical masterpiece with the help of his son, William G. Webster. Its title page does not claim the status of second edition, merely noting that this new edition was the "first edition in octavo" in contrast to the quarto format of the first edition of 1828. Again in two volumes, the title page proclaimed that the ''Dictionary'' contained "the whole vocabulary of the quarto, with corrections, improvements and several thousand additional words: to which is prefixed an introductory dissertation on the origin, history and connection of the languages of western Asia and Europe, with an explanation of the principles on which languages are formed. B. L. Hamlen of
New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
, prepared the 1841 printing of the second edition.Morton, H. C. ''The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics.'' Cambridge University Press, 1995
,


1844 printing

When Webster died, his heirs sold unbound sheets of his 1841 revision ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' to the firm of J. S. & C. Adams of
Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a New England town, town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (althoug ...
. This firm bound and published a small number of copies in 1844 – the same edition that
Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...
used as a tool for her poetic composition. However, a $15 (adjusted for inflation: $512.78) price tag on the book made it too expensive to sell easily, so the Amherst firm decided to sell out. Merriam acquired rights from Adams, as well as signing a contract with Webster's heirs for sole rights.


1845 printing

The third printing of the second edition was by
George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...
and Charles Merriam of
Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...
, in 1845. This was the first ''Webster's Dictionary'' with a Merriam imprint.


Influence

Lepore (2008) demonstrates Webster's innovative ideas about language and politics and shows why Webster's endeavors were at first so poorly received. Culturally conservative
Federalists The term ''federalist'' describes several political beliefs around the world. It may also refer to the concept of parties, whose members or supporters called themselves ''Federalists''. History Europe federation In Europe, proponents of de ...
denounced the work as radicaltoo inclusive in its lexicon and even bordering on vulgar. Meanwhile, Webster's old foes, the
Jeffersonian Republicans The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early ...
, attacked the man, labeling him mad for such an undertaking. Scholars have long seen Webster's 1844 dictionary to be an important resource for reading poet
Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...
's life and work; she once commented that the "Lexicon" was her "only companion" for years. One biographer said, "The dictionary was no mere reference book to her; she read it as a priest his breviary – over and over, page by page, with utter absorption."; Austin (2005) explores the intersection of lexicographical and poetic practices in American literature, and attempts to map out a "lexical poetics" using Webster's dictionaries. He shows the ways in which American poetry has inherited Webster and drawn upon his lexicography to reinvent it. Austin explicates key definitions from both the ''Compendious'' (1806) and ''American'' (1828) dictionaries and brings into its discourse a range of concerns including the politics of American English, the question of national identity and culture in the early moments of American independence, and the poetics of citation and of definition. Webster's dictionaries were a redefinition of Americanism within the context of an emergent and unstable American socio-political and cultural identity. Webster's identification of his project as a "federal language" shows his competing impulses towards regularity and innovation in historical terms. Perhaps the contradictions of Webster's project represented a part of a larger dialectical play between liberty and order within Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary political debates.


Other dictionaries with Webster's name

Noah Webster's assistant, and later chief competitor,
Joseph Emerson Worcester Joseph Emerson Worcester (August 24, 1784 – October 27, 1865) was an American lexicographer who was the chief competitor to Noah Webster of ''Webster's Dictionary'' in the mid-nineteenth-century. Their rivalry became known as the "dictionary ...
, and Webster's son-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich, published an
abridgment An abridgement (or abridgment) is a condensing or reduction of a book or other creative work into a shorter form while maintaining the unity of the source. The abridgement can be true to the original work in terms of mood and tone, capturing the ...
of Noah Webster's 1828 ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' in 1829, with the same number of words and Webster's full definitions, but with truncated literary references and expanded etymology. Although it was more successful financially than the original 1828 edition and was reprinted many times, Noah Webster was critical of it. Worcester and Goodrich's abridgment of Noah Webster's dictionary was published in 1841 by White and Sheffield, printed by E. Sanderson in Elizabethtown, N.J. and again in 1844 by publishers Harper and Brothers of New York City, in 1844, with added words as an appendix.


''New and Revised Edition'' 1847

Upon Webster's death in 1843, the unsold books and all rights to the copyright and name "Webster" were purchased by brothers
George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...
and Charles Merriam, who then hired Webster's son-in-law
Chauncey A. Goodrich Chauncey Allen Goodrich (October 23, 1790 – February 25, 1860) was an American clergyman, educator and lexicographer. He was the son-in-law of Noah Webster and edited his '' Dictionary'' after his father-in-law's death. Family Goodrich was the ...
, a professor at
Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
, to oversee revisions. Goodrich's ''New and Revised Edition'' appeared on September 24, 1847, and a ''Revised and Enlarged'' edition in 1848, which added a section of illustrations indexed to the text. His revisions remained close to Webster's work, but removed what later editors referred to as his "excrescences".


British influence

In 1850, Blackie and Son in Glasgow published the first general dictionary of English that made heavy use of pictorial 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.


Unabridged edition 1864

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 Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
professor
Noah Porter Noah Thomas Porter III (December 14, 1811 – March 4, 1892)''Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University'', Yale University, 1891-2, New Haven, pp. 82-83. was an American Congregational minister, academic, philosopher, author, lexicographer a ...
and published in 1864, containing 114,000 entries. It was sometimes referred to as the ''Webster–Mahn'' edition, because it featured revisions by Dr.
C. A. F. Mahn Carl August Friedrich Mahn (September 9, 1802 – January 27, 1887) was a German philologist and language teacher and researcher. Mahn was born in Zellerfeld. In 1828 he became a foreign-language teacher in Berlin, but he gained note mainly for hi ...
, who replaced unsupportable etymologies which were based on Webster's attempt to conform to Biblical interpretations of the history of language. It was the first edition to largely overhaul Noah Webster's work, and the first to be known as the ''Unabridged''. Later printings included additional material: a "Supplement Of Additional Words And Definitions" containing more than 4,600 new words and definitions in 1879, ''A Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary'' containing more than 9,700 names of noteworthy persons in 1879, and a ''Pronouncing Gazetteer'' in 1884. The 1883 printing of the book contained 1,928 pages and was 8½ in (22 cm) wide by 11½ in (29 cm) tall by 4¼ in (11 cm) thick. The 1888 printing (revision?) is similarly sized, with the last printed page number "1935" which has on its back further content (hence, 1936th page), and closes with "Whole number of pages 2012". This dictionary carries the 1864 Preface by Noah Porter with postscripts of 1879 and 1884. James A.H. Murray, the editor of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (1879–1928) says Webster's unabridged edition of 1864 "acquired an international fame. It was held to be superior to every other dictionary and taken as the leading authority on the meaning of words, not only in America and England, but also throughout the Far East."


''Webster's International Dictionary'' (1890 and 1900)

Porter also edited the succeeding edition, ''Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language'' (1890), which was an expansion of the ''American Dictionary''. It contained about 175,000 entries. In 1900, ''Webster's International'' was republished with a supplement that added 25,000 entries to it. In 1898 the ''Collegiate Dictionary'' also was introduced (see below).


''Webster's New International Dictionary'' 1909

The Merriam Company issued a complete revision in 1909, ''Webster's New International Dictionary'', edited by
William Torrey Harris William Torrey Harris (September 10, 1835 – November 5, 1909) was an American educator, philosopher, and lexicographer. He worked for nearly a quarter century in St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught school and served as Superintendent of Sch ...
and F. Sturges Allen. Vastly expanded, it covered more than 400,000 entries, and double the number of illustrations. A new format feature, the ''divided page'', was designed to save space by including a section of ''words below the line'' at the bottom of each page: six columns of very fine print, devoted to such items as rarely used, obsolete, and foreign words, abbreviations, and variant spellings. Notable improvement was made in the treatment and number of ''
discriminated synonyms Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of Racial discrimination, r ...
'', comparisons of subtle shades of meaning. Also added was a twenty-page chart comparing the Webster's pronunciations with those offered by six other major dictionaries. This edition was reprinted in 1913. Being in the public domain and having been scanned and OCRd, this edition has had substantial influence on Wiktionary.


''Webster's New International Dictionary'' (second edition, 1934)

In 1934, the ''New International Dictionary'' was revised and expanded for a second edition, which is popularly known as ''Webster's Second'' or ''W2'', although it was not published under that title. It was edited by
William Allan Neilson William Allan Neilson (28 March 1869 – 1946) was a Scottish-American educator, writer and lexicographer, graduated in the University of Edinburgh in 1891 and became a PhD in Harvard University in 1898. He was president of Smith College betwe ...
and
Thomas A. Knott Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March ...
. It contained 3350 pages and sold for $39.50 (adjusted for inflation: $755.77). Some versions added a 400-page supplement called ''A Reference History of the World'', which provided chronologies "from earliest times to the present". The editors claimed more than 600,000 entries, more than any other dictionary at that time, but that number included many proper names and newly added lists of undefined " combination words". Multiple definitions of words are listed in chronological order, with the oldest, and often obsolete, usages listed first. For example, the first definition of ''starve'' includes dying of exposure to the elements as well as from lack of food. The numerous picture plates added to the book's appeal and usefulness, particularly when pertaining to things found in nature. Conversely, the plate showing the coins of the world's important nations quickly proved to be ephemeral. Numerous gold coins from various important countries were included, including American eagles, at a time when it had recently become illegal for Americans to own them, and when most other countries had withdrawn gold from active circulation as well. Early printings of this dictionary contained the erroneous
ghost word A ghost word is a word published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work even though it had not previously had any meaning or been used intentionally. A ghost word generally originates from a typographical or linguistic error, tak ...
''
dord The word ''dord'' is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the '' New International Dictionary'', second edition (1934). That ...
''. Because of its style and word coverage, ''Webster's Second'' is still a popular dictionary. For example, in the case of ''Miller Brewing Co. v. G. Heileman Brewing Co., Inc''., 561 F.2d 75 (7th Cir. 1977) – a trademark dispute in which the terms "lite" and "light" were held to be generic for light beer and therefore available for use by anyone – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, after considering a definition from ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary'', wrote that " e comparable definition in the previous, and for many the classic, edition of the same dictionary is as follows:..."


''Webster's Third New International Dictionary'' (1961)

After about a decade of preparation, G. & C. Merriam issued the entirely new ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (commonly known as ''Webster's Third'', or ''W3'') in September 1961. Although it was an unprecedented masterwork of scholarship, it was met with considerable criticism for its descriptive (rather than prescriptive) approach. The dictionary's treatment of "ain't" was subject to particular scorn, since it seemed to overrule the near-unanimous denunciation of that word by English teachers.


Revisions and updates

Since the 1961 publication of the ''Third'',
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
has reprinted the main text of the dictionary with only minor corrections. To add new words, they created an ''Addenda Section'' in 1966, included in the front matter, which was expanded in 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1993, and 2002. However, the rate of additions was much slower than it had been throughout the previous hundred years. Following the purchase of Merriam-Webster by
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. is a British-American company known for publishing the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', the world's oldest continuously published encyclopaedia, as well as extensive digital efforts—including text and audiovisual— ...
in 1964, a three-volume version was issued for many years as a supplement to the encyclopedia. At the end of volume three, this edition included the ''Britannica World Language Dictionary'', 474 pages of translations between English and French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish. A CD-ROM version of the complete text, with thousands of additional new words and definitions from the "addenda", was published by Merriam-Webster in 2000, and is often packaged with the print edition. The third edition was published in 2000 on Merriam-Webster's website as a
subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...
service. Planning for a Fourth edition of the ''Unabridged'' began with a 1988 memo from Merriam-Webster president William Llewellyn, but was repeatedly deferred in favor of updates to the more lucrative ''Collegiate''. Work on a full revision finally began in 2009. In January 2013 the ''Third New International'' website service was rebranded as the ''Unabridged'' with the first "Release" of 4,800 new and revised entries added to the site. There were two further "Releases" in 2014. The revised website is not branded as the "Fourth edition" and it is unlikely that a print version will ever be produced, because demand is declining and its increased size would make it unwieldy and expensive.


Merriam-Webster's ''Collegiate Dictionary''

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
introduced its ''Collegiate Dictionary'' in 1898 and the series is now in its eleventh edition. Following the publication of ''Webster's International'' in 1890, two ''Collegiate'' editions were issued as abridgments of each of their ''Unabridged'' editions. With the ninth edition (''Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary'' (WNNCD), published in 1983), the ''Collegiate'' adopted changes which distinguish it as a separate entity rather than merely an abridgment of the "Third New International." Some proper names were returned to the word list, including names of
Knights of the Round Table The Knights of the Round Table ( cy, Marchogion y Ford Gron, kw, Marghekyon an Moos Krenn, br, Marc'hegien an Daol Grenn) are the knights of the fellowship of King Arthur in the literary cycle of the Matter of Britain. First appearing in lit ...
. The most notable change was the inclusion of the date of the first known citation of each word, to document its entry into the English language. The eleventh edition (published in 2003) includes more than 225,000 definitions, and more than 165,000 entries. A
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
of the text is sometimes included. This dictionary is preferred as a source "for general matters of spelling" by ''
The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writi ...
'', which is followed by many book publishers and magazines in the United States. The ''Chicago Manual'' states that it "normally opts for" the first spelling listed.''
The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writi ...
'', 15th edition, New York and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003, Chapter 7: "Spelling, Distinctive Treatment of Words, and Compounds", Section 7.1 "Introduction", p. 278
In addition to its ''Collegiate'' editions G. & C. Merriam Co. also produced abridged editions for students (''Primary School, Elementary School, Secondary School, High School, Common School, Academic'') as well as for general public (''Condensed, Practical, Handy''). The first edition of the abridged ''Primary School'' dictionary was prepared by Noah Webster in 1833 and later revised by William G. Webster and William A. Wheeler.


Editions

Below is a list of years of publication of the Collegiate dictionaries. * 1st: 1898 * 2nd: 1910 * 3rd: 1916 * 4th: 1931 * 5th: 1936 * 6th: 1949 * 7th: 1963 * 8th: 1973 * 9th: 1983 * 10th: 1993 * 11th: 2003


The name Webster used by others

Since the late 19th century, dictionaries bearing the name ''Webster's'' have been published by companies other than
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
. Some of these were unauthorized reprints of Noah Webster's work; some were revisions of his work. One such revision was ''Webster's Imperial Dictionary'', based on John Ogilvie's ''
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 ...
'', itself an expansion of Noah Webster's ''American Dictionary''. Following legal action by Merriam, successive US courts ruled by 1908 that ''Webster's'' entered the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
when the ''Unabridged'' did, in 1889. In 1917, a US court ruled that ''Webster's'' entered the public domain in 1834 when Noah Webster's 1806 dictionary's
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
lapsed. Thus, ''Webster's'' became a
genericized trademark A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that, because of its popularity or significance, has become the generic term for, or synonymous with, a general class of products or ...
and others were free to use the name on their own works. Since then, use of the name ''Webster'' has been rampant. Merriam-Webster goes to great pains to remind dictionary buyers that it alone is the heir to Noah Webster. Although Merriam-Webster revisers find solid ground in Noah Webster's concept of the English language as an ever-changing tapestry, the issue is more complicated than that. Throughout the 20th century, some non-Merriam editions, such as ''Webster's New Universal'', were closer to Webster's work than contemporary Merriam-Webster editions. Further revisions by Merriam-Webster came to have little in common with their original source, while the ''Universal'', for example, was minimally revised and remained largely out of date. So many dictionaries of varied size and quality have been called ''Webster's'' that the name no longer has any specific brand meaning. Despite this, many people still recognize and trust the name. Thus, ''Webster's'' continues as a powerful and lucrative marketing tool. In recent years, even established dictionaries with no direct link to Noah Webster whatsoever have adopted his name, adding to the confusion. Random House dictionaries are now called ''Random House Webster's'', and
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's ''
Encarta ''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later articles ...
World English Dictionary'' is now ''
Encarta Webster's Dictionary The ''Encarta Webster's Dictionary of the English Language'' (2004) is the second edition of the ''Encarta World English Dictionary'', published in 1999 (Anne Soukhanov, editor). Slightly larger than a college dictionary, it is similar in appea ...
''. The dictionary now called ''Webster's New Universal'' no longer even uses the text of the original ''Webster's New Universal'' dictionary, but rather is a newly commissioned version of the ''Random House Dictionary''. The '' Webster's Online Dictionary: The Rosetta Edition'' is not linked to
Merriam-Webster Online Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is especially known for its dictionary, dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George Merriam, George a ...
. It is a multilingual
online dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by radical-and-stroke sorting, radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include inf ...
created in 1999 by
Philip M. Parker Philip M. Parker (born June 20, 1960) is an American economist and academic, currently the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Management Science at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He has patented a method to automatically produce a set of similar book ...
. This site compiles different online dictionaries and encyclopedia including the ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (1913),
Wiktionary Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...
and Wikipedia.


Competition

Noah Webster's main competitor was a man named
Joseph Emerson Worcester Joseph Emerson Worcester (August 24, 1784 – October 27, 1865) was an American lexicographer who was the chief competitor to Noah Webster of ''Webster's Dictionary'' in the mid-nineteenth-century. Their rivalry became known as the "dictionary ...
, whose 1830 ''Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language'' brought accusations of plagiarism from Webster. The rivalry was carried on by Merriam after Webster's death, in what is often referred to as the "Dictionary Wars". After Worcester's death in 1865, revision of his ''Dictionary of the English Language'' was soon discontinued and it eventually went out of print. The American edition of Charles Annandale's four volume revision of ''
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 ...
'', published in 1883 by the Century Company, was more comprehensive than the ''Unabridged''. The ''
Century Dictionary ''The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia'' is one of the largest encyclopedic dictionaries of the English language. In its day it was compared favorably with the ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' and frequently consulted for more factual informati ...
'', an expansion of the ''Imperial'' first published from 1889 to 1891, covered a larger vocabulary until the publication of ''Webster's Second'' in 1934, after the ''Century'' had ceased publication. In 1894 came ''
Funk & Wagnalls Funk & Wagnalls was an American publisher known for its reference works, including ''A Standard Dictionary of the English Language'' (1st ed. 1893–5), and the ''Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia'' (25 volumes, 1st ed. 1912).Funk & Wagnalls N ...
Standard Dictionary'', an attractive one volume counterpart to ''Webster's International''. The expanded ''New Standard'' of 1913 was a worthy challenge to the ''New International'', and remained a major competitor for many years. However, Funk & Wagnalls never revised the work, reprinting it virtually unchanged for more than 50 years, while Merriam published two major revisions. The ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' (''OED''), which published its complete first edition in 1933, challenged ''Merriam'' in scholarship, though not in the marketplace due to its much larger size. The ''New International'' editions continued to offer words and features not covered by the ''OED'', and vice versa. In the 1970s, the ''OED'' began publishing ''Supplements'' to its dictionary and in 1989 integrated the new words in the supplements with the older definitions and etymologies in its ''Second Edition''. Between the 1930s and the 1950s, several college dictionaries, notably the ''
American College Dictionary The ''American College Dictionary'' was the first Random House dictionary and was later expanded to create the ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language''. First published in 1947, ''The American College Dictionary'' was edited by Clarenc ...
'' and (non-Merriam) ''
Webster's New World Dictionary ''Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language'' is an American dictionary first published in 1951 and since 2022 published by Harper Collins Publishers. Overview The first edition was published by the World Publishing Company of Cl ...
'', entered the market alongside the ''Collegiate''. Among larger dictionaries during this period was (non-Merriam) ''Webster's Universal Dictionary'' (also published as ''Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary'') which traced its roots to Noah Webster and called itself "unabridged", but had less than half the vocabulary and paled in scholarship against the ''Merriam'' editions. After the commercial success of ''Webster's Third New International'' in the 1960s,
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
responded by adapting its college dictionary by adding more illustrations and large numbers of proper names, increasing its print size and page thickness, and giving it a heavy cover. In 1966, it was published as a new "unabridged" dictionary. It was expanded in 1987, but it still covered no more than half the actual vocabulary of ''Webster's Third''. The American Heritage Publishing Co., highly critical of ''Webster's Third'', failed in an attempt to buy out Merriam-Webster and determined to create its own dictionary, ''
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (''AHD'') is an American English, American dictionary of English published by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969. ...
''. In 1969, it issued a college-sized dictionary. Now in its fifth edition, it is only slightly greater in vocabulary than the ''Collegiate'', but it appears much larger and has the appeal of many pictures and other features, such as a usage panel of language professionals which is polled for the acceptability of certain word usage, and a discussion for some entries of subtle differences among words with similar meaning. Other medium-sized dictionaries have since entered the market, including the '' New Oxford American'' and the ''Encarta Webster's'', while Merriam-Webster has not attempted to compete by issuing a similar edition.


References


Further reading

* * Landau, Sidney I. (1989) ''Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography''. Cambridge University Press. Second Edition, 2001. * * * * * * *


External links


1828 edition

The 1828 edition of the ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' (2 volumes; New York: S. Converse) can be searched online at:
1828.mshaffer.com

webstersdictionary1828.com
DjVu DjVu ( , like French "déjà vu") is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, indexed color images, and photographs. It uses technologies such as ima ...
and
PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
versions can be viewed at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
:
Volume 1
(includes words starting with A to I)
Volume 2
(includes words starting with J to Z) Plain-text versions are also available from the Internet Archive (with some errors, due to automatic
optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
).


1841 (1844) edition


1841 edition
(published 1844) on the Emily Dickinson site. The last edition of the ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' that Noah Webster made before his death.
1828.mshaffer.com


1847 edition

''An American Dictionary of the English Language'', edited by Chauncey A. Goodrich.
1847 print

1857 print


1859 edition

''An American Dictionary of the English Language'', edited by Chauncey A. Goodrich, first pictorial edition.
1861 print

1862 print


1864 edition

''An American Dictionary of the English Language'', edited by Noah Porter and C. A. F. Mahn
1865 print

1886 print


1890 edition

''Webster's International Dictionary'', edited by Noah Porter and W. T. Harris, 1890 edition plus 1900 supplement
1907 print on HathiTrust

1898 print on the Internet Archive
of the Australian edition with an Australian supplement


1909 edition

''Webster's New International Dictionary'', 1st edition * 1930 revisio
on HathiTruston the Internet Archive


1913 edition

The ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (editor Noah Porter, Springfield, MA: C. & G. Merriam Co., 1913), from which copyright has lapsed and is now in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
, has been digitized in 1996 by MICRA, In

http://micra.com/] and is now available at various free online resources, including: *
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
: ** Original ra
version 0.50
texts No. 660 to No. 670, in
E-text e-text (from "''electronics, electronic text''"; sometimes written as etext) is a general term for any Electronic document, document that is read in digital data, digital form, and especially a document that is mainly text. For example, a compute ...
/
E-Book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
format *
#673
in one file, in
E-text e-text (from "''electronics, electronic text''"; sometimes written as etext) is a general term for any Electronic document, document that is read in digital data, digital form, and especially a document that is mainly text. For example, a compute ...
/
E-Book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
format *
#29765
in one file, plain text version *

(Online Plain Text English Dictionary), plain text, divided by letters *

in EPWING/JIS X 4081 format *
Collaborative International Dictionary of English The ''Collaborative International Dictionary of English'' (''CIDE'') was derived from the 1913 ''Webster's Dictionary'' and has been supplemented with some of the definitions from WordNet. It is being proof-read and supplemented by volunteers from ...
,
GCIDE GCIDE is the GNU version of Collaborative International Dictionary of English, derived from the 1913 edition of Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary and WordNet. The dictionary is released under the GNU General Public License. It describes i ...
, and
DICT DICT is a dictionary network protocol created by the DICT Development Group in 1997, described by RFC 2229. Its goal is to surpass the Webster protocol to allow clients to access a variety of dictionaries via a uniform interface. In section 3. ...
*
dict.org
DICT Development Group
HyperDictionary.com

www.websters1913.com


School dictionaries

* ''Dictionary for Primary Schools'' (1833), by Noah Webster
on Internet Archive
* ''Primary School Dictionary'' (1867
on the Internet Archive1871 print1874 print
* ''Webster's Primary School Dictionary'' (1892
on the Internet Archive
* ''Webster's Elementary-School Dictionary'' (1914
on the Internet Archive
* ''Webster's Secondary-School Dictionary'' (1913
on HathiTruston the Internet Archive
* ''Common-School Dictionary'' (1867
on HathiTruston Internet Archive
* ''Webster's Common School Dictionary'' (1892
on HathiTrust
* ''High-School Dictionary'' (1868
on the Internet Archive
* ''Webster's High School Dictionary'' (1892
on HathiTrust on the Internet Archiveon the Internet Archive
* ''Webster's Academic Dictionary'' (1895
on the Internet Archive


''Collegiate Dictionary''

* 1st edition (1898)
on HathiTruston the Internet Archive1909 print on HathiTrust
* 2nd edition (1910)
1914 print on HathiTrust
* 3rd edition (1916) ** 1916 prin
on HathiTruston the Internet Archive
** 1917 prin
on HathiTrust
** 1919 prin
on HathiTruston the Internet Archive
* '
11th Edition
'' (2003), the most recent edition of the ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'' available online on the company's website {{Authority control English dictionaries