Lexicographer

History

Regardless of how beneficial human lexicographers may be to lexicography, money to fund such positions has been drying up. The rise of the Internet since the 1990s has seen sharply declining printed paper dictionary sales. Many once formidable brands have stopped publishing new editions and simply began licensing out their last completed edition. During the 2000s and 2010s, ad revenue has helped sustain online versions of dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com, and these companies still employed lexicographers to stay up to date. However, changes in Google Search, the main source of incoming traffic, has seen traffic decline since 2016. As such, they too have largely laid off most of their staff working on this, with hobbyists, academics, and contractors continuing the work. Stefan Fatsis has estimated that the number of full-time commercial lexicographers in 2025 has dropped to less than a quarter of the amount in 2000.