Webster's Dictionary is any of the American English dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted Webster's name in his honor. "Webster's" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for American English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.
Merriam-Webster is the corporate heir to Noah Webster's original works, which are in the public domain.
Noah Webster's dictionaries A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) Noah Webster, the author of the readers' and spelling books that 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 reasons both philological 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."Algeo, John. "The Effects of the Revolution on Language", in A Companion to the American Revolution. John Wiley & Sons, 2008. p. 599 In William Shakespeare's First Folios, for example, spellings such as center and color are the most common.-or . Online Etymology Dictionary.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.
An American Dictionary of the English Language First edition (1828)
In 1828, when Noah Webster was 70, he published An American Dictionary of the English Language, printed by S. Converse in two quarto volumes containing 70,000 entries, far greater than the 58,000 of the largest previous dictionary. There were 2,500 copies printed, at for the two volumes. At first the set sold poorly. When he lowered the price to , its sales improved, and by 1836 that edition was exhausted.Skeel, Emily. A Bibliography of the Writings of Noah Webster (1958), p. 234. "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) 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.Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, second edition (New Haven, Connecticut: the author, 1841). B. L. Hamlen of New Haven, Connecticut, 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 ,
When Webster died in 1843, his heirs sold unbound sheets of the 1841 revision to the firm of J. S. & C. Adams of Amherst, Massachusetts. This firm bound and published a small number of copies in 1844. It was one of these copies that Emily Dickinson used as a tool for her poetic composition.Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, second edition (Amherst, Massachusetts: J. S. & C. Adams, 1844). However, a price tag on the book made it too expensive to sell easily, so Adams decided to sell the rights. G & C Merriam Co. of Springfield, Massachusetts acquired rights from Adams, and contracted with Webster's heirs for sole rights.
The third printing of the second edition in 1845 was the first Webster's Dictionary with a Merriam imprint.Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, second edition (Springfield, Massachusetts: George & Charles Merriam, 1845).
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 denounced the work as radicaltoo inclusive in its lexicon and even bordering on vulgar. Meanwhile, Webster's old foes, the Jeffersonian Republicans, attacked the man, labeling him mad for such an undertaking.Jill Lepore, "Introduction" in Arthur Schulman, Websterisms: A Collection of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Father of American English (Free Press, 2008).
Scholars have long seen Webster's 1844 dictionary to be an important resource for reading poet Emily Dickinson'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.";; Martha Dickinson Bianchi, The life and letters of Emily Dickinson (1924) p. 80 for quote
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.Nathan W. Austin, "Lost in the Maze of Words: Reading and Re-reading Noah Webster's Dictionaries", Dissertation Abstracts International, 2005, Vol. 65 Issue 12, p. 4561
Successor dictionaries 1847 and 1859 editions G & C Merriam Co. hired Webster's son-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich, a professor at Yale, to oversee revisions. Goodrich's New and Revised Edition was published in 1847, and a Revised and Enlarged edition in 1859, 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".
Unabridged edition (1864) In response to Joseph Emerson Worcester's dictionary of 1860, Merriam commissioned a significantly revised edition, A Dictionary of the English Language. It was edited by Yale University professor Noah Porter and published in 1864, containing 114,000 entries. 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 revision is similarly sized. This dictionary carries the 1864 Preface by Noah Porter with postscripts of 1879 and 1884.
James A.H. Murray, the editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1879–1928) says the 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."K. M. Elisabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary (1977), p. 133
Webster's International Dictionary (1890)
Porter also edited the succeeding edition, Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1890. It contains about 175,000 entries. In 1900, Webster's International was republished with a supplement that added 25,000 entries to it. Being in the public domain and having been scanned and OCRd in 1996, this edition has had substantial influence on Wiktionary.
Webster's New International Dictionary (1909)
Merriam issued a complete revision in 1909, Webster's New International Dictionary, edited by William Torrey Harris 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, 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.
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. It was edited by William Allan Neilson and Thomas A. Knott. It contained 3,350 pages and sold for . 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 dord.