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Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an American company that publishes reference books and is mostly known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. [1] In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts.
- 1831; 192 years ago
- Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
- George Merriam, Charles Merriam
- Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
See Definitions and Examples ». Merriam-Webster is the most reliable, trusted, easy-to-use dictionary and thesaurus online. Our products also include bilingual dictionaries and the Official Scrabble Dictionary. For over 150 years, Merriam-Webster has been America's leading and most-trusted provider of language information.
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On February 11, 1806, Americans first learned about "Webster's Dictionary." The now-familiar phrase appeared as the headline of the advertisement that Webster placed in The Connecticut Herald on publication day. The Compendious Dictionary, with its 432 large duodecimo pages, cost a dollar fifty. The book contained roughly forty thousand words.
The Merriams started thinking, "What if we started taking our dictionary apart and putting it back together?" In other words, revising the work of the now-dead Noah Webster and making it new. This was the part that was new and original. Because no one had really done that in a systematic way to the work of Cockerham or Bailey.
- It wasn’t Webster’s first book about language ... Following his studies at Yale in the late 1700s, Webster had initially hoped to become a lawyer, but a lack of funds held him back from pursuing his chosen career.
- Or even his first dictionary. Webster had published a less exhaustive dictionary, entitled A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, in 1806.
- It took Webster 22 years to complete An American Dictionary of the English Language (for good reason). Webster reportedly finished compiling his dictionary in 1825, and continued to edit and improve it for three more years; he was 70 years old when An American Dictionary of the English Language was finally published in 1828.
- It was the biggest dictionary ever written. Webster’s 37,000-word Compendious Dictionary (1806) had listed around 5000 entries fewer than what was at the time the longest English dictionary available: Samuel Johnson’s 42,000-word Dictionary of the English Language (1755).
Sep 25, 2017 · Nearly 200 years later, American English is still building on Webster’s foundation, as the dictionary that bears his name goes into its fourth edition—online. Noah Webster changed the American language in lasting ways, and it all started with a road trip.
Rebecca Greenleaf Webster. At forty-three, Noah started working on one of his most important and lasting contributions to American English—The Webster’s Dictionary. It was to change, for the better, the spellings of certain groups of words from their British spelling.
