Webster's Dictionary - Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of The English Language"

Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of The English Language"

Noah Webster (1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books that dominated the American market at the time, spent decades of research in compiling his dictionaries. His first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, appeared 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 included 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.

Read more about this topic:  Webster's Dictionary

Famous quotes containing the words english language, noah webster, noah, webster, american, dictionary, english and/or language:

    “The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.”
    —Derek Walcott (b. 1930)

    “... word-sniffing ... is an addiction, like glue—or snow—sniffing in a somewhat less destructive way, physically if not economically.... As an addict ... I am almost guiltily interested in converts to my own illness, and in a pinch I can recommend nearly any reasonable solace, whether or not it qualifies as a true descendant of Noah Webster.”
    —M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)

    “And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
    “I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the
    wine.””
    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)

    “The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.”
    —Daniel Webster (1782–1852)

    “What a terrible thing has happened to us all! To you there, to us here, to all everywhere. Peace who was becoming bright-eyed, now sits in the shadow of death; her handsome champion has been killed as he walked by her very side. Her gallant boy is dead. What a cruel, foul, and most unnatural murder! We mourn here with you, poor, sad American people.”
    —Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)

    “I am hungry and you give me
    a dictionary to decipher.”
    —Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    “Civilisation—a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit. vultures.”
    —Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)

    “There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
    Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
    We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
    In brininess and volubility.”
    —Robert Graves (1895–1985)