HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Lexicography

What is a lexicographer?

Samuel Johnson poked fun at his own endeavors in his Dictionary, defining lexicographer as 'a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.' For a recent review of Johnson's (1755) work, see: "Samuel Johnson's Peculiar Dictionary" by Adam Kirsch (Slate.com).

A sampling of the dictionaries available at Case Libraries

• > Farmer, Slang and Its Analogues (1800-1904)
• > Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language
• > W.E. Whitney, ed. The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1900)
• > Noah Webster, ed. An American Dictionary of the English Language
• > J.E. Lighter, ed. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang
• > Frederic G. Cassidy, ed. Dictionary of American Regional English
• > Clarence Major, ed. Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang
• > Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Triechler, eds. A Feminist Dictionary
• > Bruce Rodgers, ed. The Queens' Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon

Word Lists & Dictionaries Online

• > Oxford English Dictionary - The electronic OED allows you quick and easy access to the largest historical dictionary ever published. The Dictionary is designed to provide the history of meaning and use of almost all words in the English language, from 1100 through the late twentieth century, with illustrative quotations.
• > LEME: Lexicons of Early Modern English (University of Toronto)
• > A Table Alphabeticall, by Robert Cawdrey (1604) - A Table Alphabeticall, a dictionary of "hard usual English words," is generally regarded to be the first fully developed monolingual dictionary in English. For each of the 2543 headwords contained in its first edition, Cawdrey provided a concise definition -- the standard entry rarely exceeded more than a few words, usually synonyms -- and he marked those words thought to be of French or Greek origin. While small and unsophisticated by today's standards, the Table was the largest dictionary of its type at the time and, when viewed in the full context of Early Modern English lexicography, it exemplifies the movement from words lists and glosses to dictionaries which more closely resemble those of today.
• > American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition - This online version includes audio pronunciations, images and definitions.

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Just for Fun

> "Too Marvelous for Words" - recorded by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Diana Krall - references Webster's dictionary: "You're much - you're too much - and just too "very, very"/To ever be, to ever be in Webster's Dictionary./And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds/To tell you that you're marvelous..."

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