Webster's Dictionary is the common title given to
English language dictionaries in the
United States, derived from American
lexicographer Noah Webster. In the United States, the phrase
Webster's has become a
genericized trademark for dictionaries. Although
Merriam-Webster dictionaries are descended from those of the original purchasers of Noah Webster's work, many other
dictionaries bear his name, such as those by the publishers
Random House and
John Wiley & Sons.
19th- and early 20th-century editions Porter also edited the next edition,
Webster's International Dictionary, an expansion of the
American, published in
1890 and containing 175,000 entries. The name was changed because the publisher wished to reflect the wide authority the work had throughout the English-speaking world and that it was no longer solely an "American" dictionary. The dictionary was published with a
Supplement in
1900, which added 25,000 entries.
The Merriam Company issued a complete revision in
1909,
Webster's New International Dictionary, edited by
William Torey Harris and
F. Sturges Allen. Vastly expanded, it covered over 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.
In
1934, the work was revised and expanded for its
Second Edition, popularly known as
Webster's Second, edited by
William Allen Neilson and
Thamas A. Knott. Early printings contain the famous lexicographic error
dord. The book was five-inches (130 mm) thick and contained nearly 3,400 pages, including introductory sections. Some versions added another 400 page supplement called
A Reference History of the World: dated chronologies "from earliest times to the present." The editors claimed over 600,000 entries, the largest in any dictionary to date; however, this includes multitudes of proper names and newly added lists of undefined
combination words. For its style and word coverage, it is still popular with many people.
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 offered by one of the parties from the Third Edition of the New International, wrote "[t]he comparable definition in the previous, and for many the classic, edition of the same dictionary is as follows:...".
The International Dictionary After about a decade of preparation, Merriam issued the entirely new
Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (familiarly known as
Webster's Third) in September
1961, edited by
Philip Babcock Gove and containing over 450,000 entries, including over 50,000 new words and as many new senses for existing words. The final definition,
zyzzogeton, was written on
October 17,
1960, the final etymology was recorded on
October 26, and the final pronunciation was transcribed on
November 9. Final copy went to the typesetters,
R. R. Donnelley, on
December 2. The book was printed by the Riverside Press in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. The first edition had 2,726 large pages, weighed thirteen and one-half pounds (6 kg), and originally sold for $47.50. The changes were the most radical in the history of the
Unabridged. Although it was an unprecedented masterwork of scholarship, it was met by many with disappointment and criticism.
Webster's Third New International While prior to
Webster's Third the
Unabridged had been expanded with each new edition, with very minimal deletion, Gove now made sweeping deletions. He eliminated the "nonlexical matter", including the
Pronouncing Gazetteer,
Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary,
Arbitrary Signs and Symbols, and other appendix sections, plus most other proper nouns from the main text (including mythological, biblical, and fictional names, and the names of buildings, historical events, art works, etc.,) and over thirty picture plates. The rationale was that, while useful, these are not strictly about language. Gove justified the change by the company's publication of
Webster's Biographical Dictionary in
1943 and
Webster's Geographical Dictionary in
1949, and the fact that most of the subjects removed could be found in encyclopedias. However, the change bothered many users of the dictionary who were accustomed to the dictionary being a one-volume reference source.
Also removed were words which had been virtually out of use, or
obsolete, for over two hundred years (except those found in major literature such as Shakespeare), rare variants, reformed spellings, self-explanatory
combination words, and other items considered of little value to the general reader. The number of small text illustrations was reduced, page size increased, and print size reduced by one-twelfth, from six point to agate (5.5 point) type. All this was considered necessary because of the large amount of new material, and
Webster's Second had almost reached the limits of mechanical
bookbinding. The fact that the new book had about 700 fewer pages was justified by the need to allow room for future additions.
In style and method, the dictionary bore little resemblance to earlier editions. Headwords (except for "God," initialisms, and, in the reprints, trademarks) were not capitalized. Instead of capitalizing "American," for example, the dictionary had labels next to the entries reading
cap (for the noun) and
usu cap (for the adjective). This allowed informative distinctions to be drawn: "gallic" is
usu cap while "gallicism" is
often cap and "gallicize" is
sometimes cap.
Changes Webster's Third was heavily criticized for its "permissiveness" and its refusal to take a position on what was "good" English, critics comparing it unfavorably with the
Second Edition. As
Herbert Morton put it, "
Webster's Second was more than respected. It was accepted as the ultimate authority on meaning and usage and its preeminence was virtually unchallenged in the United States. It did not provoke controversies, it settled them." Critics charged that the dictionary was reluctant to defend standard English, for example entirely eliminating the labels "colloquial", "correct", "incorrect", "proper", "improper", "erroneous", "humorous", "jocular", "poetic", and "contemptuous", among others.
Gove's stance was an exemplar of
descriptivist linguistics, aiming to represent the English language as it is actually spoken and written by most users rather than attempting to prescribe its use. David M. Glixon in the
Saturday Review described the new approach: "Having descended from God's throne of supreme authority, the Merriam folks are now seated around the city desk, recording like mad.". (It today uses the
Webster's New World Dictionary published by
John Wiley & Sons.)
Garry Wills in the
National Review opined that the new dictionary "has all the modern virtues. It is big, expensive, and ugly. It should be a great success".
Criticism of the dictionary spurred the creation of the
American Heritage Dictionary, where usage notes were determined by a panel of expert writers, commentators, and speakers.
Criticism Since the
1961 publication of the
Third,
Merriam-Webster 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 has been much slower than it had been throughout the previous hundred years.
Following the purchase of
Merriam-Webster by
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 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.
Although the time between new editions previously ranged between nineteen and twenty-seven years, after forty-five years (
as of 2006), Merriam-Webster has not revealed any plans to publish a new edition of their
Unabridged.
Revisions and updates Merriam-Webster introduced its
Collegiate Dictionary in
1898 and the series is now in its 11th edition. Following the publication of
Webster's International in
1890, two
Collegiate editions were issued as abridgements of each of their
Unabridged editions.
With the 9th edition (published in 1985), the
Collegiate adopted changes which distinguish it as a separate entity rather than merely an abridgement of the
Third New International (the main text of which has remained virtually unrevised since
1961). Some proper names were returned to the word list, including names of
Knights of the Round Table. 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 11th edition includes over 225,000 definitions, and over 165,000 entries.
Competition The latest edition of
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary can be searched online at the company's
website. The updated
Third New International is available online by subscription.
The dictionary's
1913 edition of the 1900
International, renamed
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, has in modern times been used in various free online resources, as its copyright lapsed and it became
public domain. Some of these resources include:
There are also online resources based on the 1913 version that aren't completely free, such as:
Both the
Collegiate and the 1913
Unabridged are searched by the free dictionary search engine
OneLook.
The
1828 edition can be searched online at the Cornerstone Baptist Temple
website.
Both the
1828 edition and the
1913 edition are available online in searchable format.
DICT Collaborative International Dictionary of English and
GCIDE Everything2 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Webster's Online Dictionary - The Rosetta Edition [1] (named after the
Rosetta Stone)
Geography
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