American Lexicography

Abstract

Serious American English lexicography began with Noah Webster's (1828) American dictionary of the English language, which recognized words and senses unique to American English. His main competitor in the 19th century was Joseph Worcester, but eventually Webster's successors triumphed, with the Webster–Mahn Dictionary of 1864 incorporating the best features of both earlier Websters and Worcester. The next major milestone was the Century dictionary (1889–1891), the foundation of a family of dictionaries, including the American College dictionary (1947) and the Random House dictionary (1966). Funk and Wagnall's (1893) Standard dictionary was the first large-scale dictionary to arrange senses starting with the most frequent modern meaning; previous dictionaries had arranged senses in historical order, with the etymology coming first. The Merriam-Webster Third new international dictionary (W3), still recognized as the leading scholarly American dictionary, was greeted with controversy when published in 1961. The American Heritage dictionary (1969) was originally conceived as a direct challenge to W3. Scholarly studies of the American English lexicon are The dictionary of American English (1938–1944), which included words and senses that arose in or were peculiar to the United States up to the year 1900; Matthews'Dictionary of Americanisms (1951); and the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) (1985–).