Webster's
Dictionary is the name given to a common type of
English language dictionary in the United States
. The name is derived from
lexicographer Noah
Webster and has become a
genericized trademark for this type of
dictionary.
Although
Merriam–Webster
dictionaries are descended from the original work of Noah Webster,
many other dictionaries bear his name, such as those published by
Random House and by
John Wiley & Sons.
19th- and early 20th- century editions
Noah Webster, the author of popular
readers and spelling books for schools, published his first
dictionary,
A Compendious Dictionary of the English
Language, in 1806. In it, he introduced features that would be
a hallmark of future editions such as American spellings
(
center rather than
centre,
honor rather
than
honour,
program rather than
programme, etc.) and including technical terms from the
arts and sciences rather than confining his dictionary to literary
words. He spent the next two decades working to expand his
dictionary.
In 1828, at the age of 70, Webster published his
American
Dictionary of the English Language in two
quarto volumes containing
70,000 entries (with pages ] wide and ] tall). Webster's assistant,
and later chief competitor,
Joseph Emerson Worcester, published
an abridgment in 1829. Webster edited a
Revised Edition
1840–1841, with the help of his son, William G. Webster, the
primary change being the addition of several thousand new
words.
Upon Webster's death in 1843, the unsold books and all rights to
the copyright and name "Webster" were purchased by brothers George
and Charles Merriam, who then hired Webster's son-in-law
Chauncey A. Goodrich, a professor at
Yale College, to oversee revisions. Goodrich's
New and Revised Edition appeared on
September 24,
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, although removing what later
editors referred to as his "excrescences".
In response to Joseph Worcester's groundbreaking dictionary of
1860, the
G.
& C.
Merriam Company
created a significantly revised edition, retaining the title
American Dictionary of the English Language.
It was edited by
Yale
University
editor
Noah Porter 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,
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 over
4,600 new words and definitions in 1879,
A Pronouncing
Biographical Dictionary containing over 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
wide by tall by thick.
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.
Webster's New International Dictionary
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.
Webster’s New International Dictionary (second edition)
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
Allen Neilson and
Thomas A.
Knott. It contained 3350 pages and
sold for $39.50. 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 over 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”.
Early printings of this dictionary contained the famous
dord.
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 “[T]he comparable definition in the
previous, and for many the classic, edition of the same dictionary
is as follows:...”
Webster's Third New International Dictionary
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. It was
edited by
Philip Babcock Gove
and contained more than 450,000 entries. It included more than
100,000 new entries and as many new senses for entries carried over
from previous editions.
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. The 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 pages
(measuring wide by tall by thick), weighed 13 1/2 lbs (6.12kg), 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.
This
dictionary is preferred as a backup source by two influential style
guides in the United
States , although each one directs writers to go first to
other, shorter dictionaries. The Chicago Manual of
Style, followed by many book publishers and magazines in
the United States, recommends
Webster's Third, along with
Merriam–Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for "general
matters of spelling", and the style book "normally opts for" the
first spelling listed (with the
Collegiate taking
precedence over
Webster's Third because it "represents the
latest research").
The Associated Press
Stylebook, used by most newspapers in the United States,
refers readers to
W3 "if there is no listing in either
this book or
Webster's New World".
Changes
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 Biographical
Dictionary,
Arbitrary Signs and Symbols, and some
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.
Also removed were words which had been virtually out of use 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.
Criticisms
Webster's Third was heavily criticized for its
"permissiveness" and its refusal to take a position on what was
"proper" 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:
describing language as it is or has been used. As David M. Glixon
put it in the
Saturday
Review: "Having descended from God's throne of supreme
authority, the Merriam folks are now seated around the city desk,
recording like mad."
Jacques Barzun
said this stance made
Webster's Third "the longest
political pamphlet ever put together by a party", done with "a
dogma that far transcends the limits of
lexicography". The dictionary's treatment of
"ain't" was subject to particular scorn, the word receiving no more
severe comment from
Webster's Third than: "though
disapproved by many and more common in less educated speech, used
orally in most parts of the U.S. by many cultivated speakers esp.
in the phrase
ain't I".
The
Globe and Mail of Toronto
editorialized: "a dictionary's embrace of the word 'ain't' will
comfort the ignorant, confer approval upon the mediocre, and subtly
imply that proper English is the tool of only the snob". The New
York Times editorialized that "Webster's has, it is
apparent, surrendered to the permissive school that has been busily
extending its beachhead in English instruction in the schools ...
reinforced the notion that good English is whatever is popular" and
"can only accelerate the deterioration" of the English language .
The Times' widely respected
Theodore M. Bernstein, its in-house style maven
and a professor of journalism at
Columbia University, ordered that
The Times' dictionary-of-record would continue to be
the
Webster's Second . (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".
In his
Nero Wolfe novel
Gambit,
Rex
Stout famously depicted his erudite armchair detective burning
pages from this edition in his fireplace because it sanctioned
usages he disliked.
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.
Revisions and updates
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-seven years ( ),
Merriam–Webster has not revealed any plans to publish a
Fourth
New International edition of the
Unabridged.
Merriam–Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
Merriam–Webster’s 11
th
edition of the Collegiate Dictionary.
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 abridgments 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 abridgment 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.
This dictionary is preferred as a source "for general matters of
spelling" by the influential
The Chicago Manual of
Style, 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 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. 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
Imperial Dictionary, itself an
expansion of Noah Webster's
American Dictionary.
Following legal action by Merriam, successive US courts ruled that
Webster's entered the
public
domain when the
Unabridged did, in 1889 (
G.
& C. Merriam Co. v. Ogilvie, 159
Fed. 638 (1908)). In 1917, a US court ruled that
Webster's
entered the public domain in 1834 when Noah Webster's 1806
dictionary's
copyright lapsed. Thus,
Webster's became a
genericized trademark 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. The issue is more
complicated than that, however. Throughout the 20th century, some
non-Merriam editions, such as
Webster's New Universal,
were closer to Webster's work than modern
Merriam–Webster editions. Indeed,
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. However, Merriam–Webster revisionists find solid ground in
Noah Webster's concept of the English language as an ever-changing
tapestry.
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's
Encarta World English Dictionary is now
Encarta Webster's
Dictionary. 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.
Competition
Noah Webster's main competitor was a man named
Joseph Emerson Worcester, 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, published in
1883 by the Century Company, was more comprehensive than the
Unabridged. The
Century
Dictionary, 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 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 over 50 years, while Merriam published two
major revisions.
The
Oxford English
Dictionary, which published its complete first edition in
1933, challenged
Merriam in scholarship, though not in the
marketplace due to its size. The
New International
editions continued to offer words and features not covered by
Oxford, and vice versa. In the 1970s,
Oxford
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 and (non-Merriam)
Webster's New World Dictionary, 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 disappointing reception of
Webster's Third New
International in the 1960s, the market was open for new
challengers.
Random House adapted 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 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. In 1969, it issued a college-sized
dictionary, which has since been expanded and become one of the
most popular English dictionaries . Now in its fourth edition, it
is only slightly greater in vocabulary than the
Collegiate, but appears much larger and has the appeal of
many pictures and other features. 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. All of these offer college
editions, but
Merriam–Webster's Collegiate is the largest
and most popular .
Online editions
1828 Edition
The 1828 edition can be searched online at:
1913 Edition
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:
This is an online resource based on the 1913 Webster’s that is not
entirely free:
1961 Edition
Both the
Collegiate 1961 and the
Unabridged 1913
editions are searched by the free dictionary search engine
OneLook.
Latest Editions
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.
References
- Library of Congress catalog entry
- The Chicago Manual of
Style, 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
- Goldstein, Norm, editor, Associated Press
Stylebook and Libel Manual, New York: Perseus Books, 1998,
"dictionaries" entry, p 61
- Merriam–Webster Online
- Herbert C. Morton. The Story of Webster's Third:
Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
1994.
- James Sledd and Wilma R. Ebbit, editors. Dictionaries
and That Dictionary. Chicago: Scott Foresman,
1962.
- Lepore, J. (2006, November 6). Noah's Mark: Webster and the
original dictionary wars.The New Yorker, 78-87.
- Philip B. Gove. Preface to Webster's Third New
International Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company,
1961.
- William A. Neilson and others. Preface and Introduction to
Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. G.
& C. Merriam Company, 1934.
- Leavitt, Robert Keith. Noah's Ark: New England Yankees and
The Endless Quest. Springfield: G. & C. Merriam Company,
1947.
- Rollins, Richard M. The Long Journey of Noah Webster.
The University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1980.
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