The largest of Webster's dictionaries, called “the Unabridged,” appeared as the 5th edition (1846) and included linguistic material that set it apart from previous Webster's dictionaries and made it outstanding. Authorized publishers have issued a series of skillful revisions and abridgments that have retained for Webster's dictionaries their popularity. To help those who had mastered the Spelling Book to continue their education, Webster published (1806) his Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, with concern for “what the English language is, and not, how it might have been made.” His larger dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, in two volumes, was published in 1828. For years the annual sales of this book were more than a million copies. The first edition of the book later known as Webster's Spelling Book appeared in 1783. The next great lexicographer after Samuel Johnson was an American, Noah Webster (1758–1843). The American Dictionaries of Webster and Others In both these dictionaries special care was given to pronunciation, as to which, for many years, Walker's authority received more deference than it merited. The dictionary of Thomas Sheridan (1721–88), an actor, was published in 1780, and the dictionary of John Walker (1732–1807), also an actor, in 1791. William Kenrick, who published a dictionary in 1773, was first to indicate pronunciation with diacritical marks (see accent) and to divide words according to their syllables. Johnson's definitions evince his scholarship, humor, judgment, and skill and are basic to later lexicography. An interleaved copy of this larger work was used by Samuel Johnson in preparing the two-volume Dictionary of the English Language, which appeared in 1755. His Universal Etymological English Dictionary was published in 1721 his larger dictionary, Dictionarium Britannicum, was published in 1730. 1742) was the author of three English dictionaries so much more comprehensive and consistent than any of their predecessors as rightly to be considered the first examples of modern lexicography. The 13th-century Dictionarius of John of Garland is the first recorded use of the term to mean word list. Lexicography is an ancient occupation dictionaries of many sorts were produced in China, Greece, Islam, and other complex early cultures. Because of the unprecedented scientific advances of the 20th cent., many scientific terms have come into popular use and consequently have increased the size of general dictionaries. the dictionary makers themselves began to replace notions of purity (especially based on etymology) by criteria of use, somewhat ahead of analogous developments in grammar. toward dictionaries gave them a nearly sacred authority, but in the 20th cent. The popular American attitude of the 19th cent. The most remarkable case of this sort is the dictionary of the French Academy, which is both widely admired and ignored. The modern dictionary is often prescriptive rather than descriptive, for it attempts to establish certain forms as preferable. However, a dictionary of a living language can never be complete old words fall into disuse, new words are constantly created, and those surviving frequently change their meanings. Modern dictionaries usually also provide phonetic transcriptions, hyphenation, synonyms, derived forms, and etymology. In monolingual dictionaries the words are explained and defined in the same language in bilingual dictionaries they are translated into another language. Dictionary, published list, in alphabetical order, of the words of a language.
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