Publication date15 April 1755Published on 15 April 1755 and written by, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential in the history of the.There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a group of London booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500 (£1,575), equivalent to about £240,000 in 2019. Johnson took seven years to complete the work, although he had claimed he could finish it in three. He did so single-handedly, with only clerical assistance to copy the illustrative quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson produced several revised editions during his life.Until the completion of the 173 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary. According to, the Dictionary 'easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time'. This section needs additional citations for. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: – ( April 2017) In earlier times, books had been regarded with something approaching veneration, but by the mid-eighteenth century this was no longer the case.
User Review - keylawk - LibraryThing. Republished as a facsimile for the 1985 bicentenary of Samuel Johnson's birth. This is a copy of the first great dictionary of the English language, 1755. The genius comes alive in pithy, turbulent. Read full review. English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over 600,000 words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English.
The rise of literacy among the general public, combined with the technical advances in the mechanics of and, meant that for the first time, books, texts, maps, pamphlets and newspapers were widely available to the general public at a reasonable cost. Such an explosion of the printed word demanded a set pattern of grammar, definition, and spelling for those words. This could be achieved by means of an authoritative dictionary of the English language. In 1746, a consortium of London's most successful printers, including and Thomas – none could afford to undertake it alone – set out to satisfy and capitalise on this need by the ever-increasing reading and writing public.Johnson's dictionary was not the first English dictionary, nor even among the first dozen.
Over the previous 150 years more than twenty dictionaries had been published in England, the oldest of these being a Latin-English 'wordbook' by Sir published in 1538.The next to appear was by, a headmaster, in 1583. Mulcaster compiled what he termed 'a generall table of eight thousand words we commonlie use.yet It were a thing verie praise worthy.if som well learned.would gather all words which we use in the English tung.into one dictionary.' In 1598 an Italian–English dictionary by was published. It was the first English dictionary to use quotations ('illustrations') to give meaning to the word; in none of these dictionaries so far were there any actual definitions of words.
This was to change, to a small extent, in schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey's, published in 1604. Though it contained only 2,449 words, and no word beginning with the letters W, X, or Y, this was the first monolingual English dictionary.Several more dictionaries followed: in, English, French and Italian. 's Lingua Britannica Reformata (1749) and Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1737) are both significant, in that they define entries in separate senses, or aspects, of the word. In English (among others), 's Interpreter, a law dictionary, was published in 1607, ' came out in 1658 and a dictionary of 40,000 words had been prepared in 1721 by, though none was as comprehensive in breadth or style as Johnson's.The problem with these dictionaries was that they tended to be little more than poorly organised and poorly researched glossaries of 'hard words': words that were technical, foreign, obscure or antiquated.
But perhaps the greatest single fault of these early was, as historian put it, that they 'failed to give sufficient sense of the English language as it appeared in use.' In that sense Dr. Johnson's dictionary was the first to comprehensively document the English lexicon.Johnson's preparation. Main article:Johnson's dictionary was prepared at, London, an eclectic household, between the years of 1746 and 1755. By 1747 Johnson had written his Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, which spelled out his intentions and proposed methodology for preparing his document. He clearly saw benefit in drawing from previous efforts, and saw the process as a parallel to (possibly influenced by Cowell):I shall therefore, since the rules of stile, like those of law, arise from precedents often repeated, collect the testimonies of both sides, and endeavour to discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long possessed whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words.Johnson's Plan received the patronage of but not to Johnson's pleasure. Chesterfield did not care about praise, but was instead interested by Johnson's abilities.
Seven years after first meeting Johnson to discuss the work, Chesterfield wrote two anonymous essays in The World that recommended the Dictionary. He complained that the English language was lacking structure and argued:We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion, and chose a dictator. Upon this principle, I give my vote for Mr Johnson to fill that great and arduous post.However, Johnson did not appreciate the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield had not made good on his promise to be the work's patron. In a letter, Johnson explained his feelings about the matter:Seven years, my lord, have now past since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. The text A Dictionary of the English Language was somewhat large and very expensive.
Its pages were 18 inches (46 cm) tall and nearly 20 inches (51 cm) wide. The paper was of the finest quality available, the cost of which ran to nearly £1,600; more than Johnson had been paid to write the book.
Johnson himself pronounced the book 'Vasta mole superbus' ('Proud in its great bulk'). No bookseller could possibly hope to print this book without help; outside a few of the Bible no book of this heft and size had even been set to type.The reads:ADICTIONARYof theENGLISH LANGUAGE:in whichThe WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS,andILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONSbyEXAMPLES from the beſt WRITERS.To which are prefixed,A HISTORY of the LANGUAGE,and AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR.By SAMUEL JOHNSON, A.M.In TWO VolumesVOL. IThe words 'Samuel Johnson' and 'English Language' were printed in red; the rest was printed in black. The preface and headings were set in 4.6 mm 'English', the text—double columned—was set in 3.5 mm. This first edition of the dictionary contained a 42,773-word list, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions.
One of Johnson's important innovations was to illustrate the of his words by quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include,. For example:OPULENCE Wealth; riches; affluence 'There in full opulence a banker dwelt, Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt; His sideboard glitter'd with imagin'd plate, And his proud fancy held a vast estate.' -Furthermore, Johnson, unlike Bailey, added notes on a word's usage, rather than being merely descriptive.Unlike most modern, Johnson introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. Close up of pages for M entries in the Folio and Abridged Dictionaries of 1755 and 1756 by Samuel JohnsonJohnson's famous dictionary came out in two forms.The first was the 1755 Folio edition, which came in two large volumes on 4 April. The folio edition also features full literary quotes by those authors that Johnson quoted, such as Dryden and Shakespeare. It was followed a few weeks later by a second edition published in 165 weekly parts.
The third edition was published in 1765, but it was the fourth, which came out in 1773 which included significant revisions by Johnson of the original work.The Abridged edition came out in 1756 in two volumes with entries, 'abstracted from the folio edition by the author', laid out as two columns per page. The abridged version did not feature the literary quotes, just the author quoted.
This made it cheaper to produce and buy. It sold over a thousand copies a year for the next 30 years bringing 'The Dictionary' to the reach of every literate home. Modern editions Johnson's Dictionary has been available in replica editions for some years. The entire first Folio edition is available on as an electronic scan.The Preface to the Dictionary is available on. In addition, a scan of the 6th (1785) edition can be found at the Internet Archive in its two volumes.
Advertisement in Derby Mercury 4 April 1755, page 4 'This day is published a Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson'. ^ UK inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). Retrieved 27 January 2019. Bate, Walter Jackson. Samuel Johnson, Ch. 15, 'Storming the Main Gate: The Dictionary'. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
Hitchings 2005, London p. 48; New York p. 53. Hitchings 2005, London p. 49; New York p. 55. Lane pp.
117–118. ^ Lane p. 118. ^ Lane p. 121. Johnson Letters No.
56. Hitchings 2005, London p. 195; New York p. 209.
See. See. See. See. Kacirk, Jeffrey, Forgotten English, 21 May (page). Hitchings 2005, London p.
87; New York p. 93. Hitchings 2005, p. 198. Hitchings 2005, p. 200.
Hitchings 2005, p. 198–9. Hitchings 2005, p. 199. Hitchings 2005, p. 203. Hitchings 2005, p. 221. Hitchings 2005, p. 222., 1920.
P. 7. Boswell, James (1791). Sturgis & Walton. Retrieved 9 July 2017. Johnson, Samuel (1755).
'Johnson's Dictionary Online'. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
Hitchings 2005, p. 220. Hitchings 2005, p. 212.
Hitchings 2005, pp. 227–8. A DICTIONARY, Spanish and English, and English and Spanish,. Hitchings 2005, p. 223. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 224. Hitchings 2005, p. 225. Hitchings 2005, pp. 226–7. Hitchings 2005, pp. 229–31.
Crystal, David (2005). Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English Language: An Anthology.
London: Penguin Books. P. xxviii. Johnson, Samuel (1807).
Dictionary of the English Language Abstracted from the Folio Edition (12th ed.). Johnson et al. P. Title Page. Lynch, Jack (2004).
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. London: Atlantic Books.
Retrieved 21 November 2013. 1 April 2004. Retrieved 15 April 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2010.
Retrieved 21 January 2010.References. Clifford, James Lowry (1979). Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson's Middle Years. New York: McGraw-Hill.
(2005). Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book That Defined the World. London: John Murray. US edition: Hitchings, Henry (2005). Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr.
Johnson's Dictionary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Johnson, Samuel (1952). The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Johnson, Samuel (2002). Lynch, Jack (ed.).
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English Language. Delray Beach, Florida: Levenger Press. Lane, Margaret (1975). Samuel Johnson and his World.
New York: Harper & Row. Reddick, Allen (1996). The Making of Johnson's Dictionary 1746-1773. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sledd, James H.; Kolb, Gwin J.
Johnson's Dictionary: Essays in the biography of a book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wain, John (1976). Samuel Johnson. New York: McGraw-Hill.External links. at the Library of Congress. Johnson's Dictionary, first folio edition, 1755: at the Pomeranian Digital Library.
Johnson's Dictionary, sixth folio edition, 1785: and at the Internet Archive. public domain audiobook at. Web site:. Web site:. Web site:.
Article: from The Guardian, April 2005. Web page:; an HTML table.
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