192-588: Webster's Dictionary is any of the US English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), a US lexicographer , as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. " Webster's " has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for US English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles. Merriam-Webster
384-554: A business dictionary ), a single-field dictionary narrowly covers one particular subject field (e.g. law), and a sub-field dictionary covers a more specialized field (e.g. constitutional law). For example, the 23-language Inter-Active Terminology for Europe is a multi-field dictionary, the American National Biography is a single-field, and the African American National Biography Project
576-552: A monarchist . Ultimately, Adams won the presidency by a narrow margin, garnering 71 electoral votes to 68 for Jefferson, who became the vice president. Shortly after Adams took office, he dispatched a group of envoys to seek peaceful relations with France, which had begun seizing American merchantmen trading with Britain after the ratification of the Jay Treaty. The failure of talks, and the French demand for bribes in what became known as
768-521: A specialized dictionary , also referred to as a technical dictionary, is a dictionary that focuses upon a specific subject field, as opposed to a dictionary that comprehensively contains words from the lexicon of a specific language or languages. Following the description in The Bilingual LSP Dictionary , lexicographers categorize specialized dictionaries into three types: A multi-field dictionary broadly covers several subject fields (e.g.
960-401: A "dictionary", although modern scholarship considers it a calligraphic compendium of Chinese characters from Zhou dynasty bronzes. Philitas of Cos (fl. 4th century BCE) wrote a pioneering vocabulary Disorderly Words (Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι, Átaktoi glôssai ) which explained the meanings of rare Homeric and other literary words, words from local dialects, and technical terms. Apollonius
1152-549: A "federal language" shows his competing impulses towards regularity and innovation in historical terms. Perhaps the contradictions of Webster's project represented a part of a larger dialectical play between liberty and order within Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary political debates. Noah Webster's assistant, and later chief competitor, Joseph Emerson Worcester , and Webster's son-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich, published an abridgment of Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of
1344-520: A 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography , and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta . The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection. The oldest known dictionaries were cuneiform tablets with bilingual Sumerian – Akkadian wordlists, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria ) and dated to roughly 2300 BCE,
1536-564: A Federalist caucus re-nominated President Adams on a ticket with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney , Adams dismissed two Hamilton allies from his Cabinet, leading to an open break between the two key figures in the Federalist Party. Though the Federalist Party united against Jefferson's candidacy and waged an effective campaign in many states, the Democratic-Republicans won the election by winning most Southern electoral votes and carrying
1728-405: A General Dictionary" which boldly plagiarized Blount's work, and the two criticised each other. This created more interest in the dictionaries. John Wilkins ' 1668 essay on philosophical language contains a list of 11,500 words with careful distinctions, compiled by William Lloyd . Elisha Coles published his "English Dictionary" in 1676. It was not until Samuel Johnson 's A Dictionary of
1920-870: A close election. Madison initially hoped for a quick end to the War of 1812 , but the war got off to a disastrous start as multiple American invasions of Canada were defeated. The United States had more military success in 1813, and American troops under William Henry Harrison defeated Tecumseh's confederacy in the Battle of the Thames in 1814, crushing Indian resistance to U.S. expansion . Britain shifted troops to North America in 1814 following Napoleon's abdication, and British forces captured and burnt Washington in August 1814. In early 1815, Madison learned that his negotiators in Europe had signed
2112-571: A compromise , in which Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, but slavery would be excluded in the remaining territories north of the parallel 36°30′ north . A bill based on Thomas's proposal became law in April 1820. By 1824, the Federalist Party had largely collapsed as a national party, and the 1824 presidential election was waged by competing members of the Democratic-Republican Party. The party's congressional nominating caucus
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#17328371655852304-435: A contract with Webster's heirs for sole rights. The third printing of the second edition was by George and Charles Merriam of Springfield, Massachusetts , in 1845. This was the first Webster's Dictionary with a Merriam imprint. Lepore (2008) demonstrates Webster's innovative ideas about language and politics and shows why Webster's endeavors were at first so poorly received. Culturally conservative Federalists denounced
2496-537: A decade of preparation, G. & C. Merriam issued the entirely new Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (commonly known as Webster's Third , or W3 ) in September 1961. The dictionary was met with considerable criticism for its descriptive (rather than prescriptive) approach. The dictionary's treatment of "ain't" was subject to particular scorn, since it seemed to overrule
2688-530: A dictionary between Oghuz Turkish, Arabic and Persian. But it is not clear who wrote the dictionary or in which century exactly it was published. It was written in old Anatolian Turkish from the Seljuk period and not the late medieval Ottoman period. In India around 1320, Amir Khusro compiled the Khaliq-e-bari, which mainly dealt with Hindustani and Persian words. Arabic dictionaries were compiled between
2880-644: A diplomatic mission to purchase New Orleans. To the surprise of the American delegation, Napoleon offered to sell the entire territory of Louisiana for $ 15 million. After Secretary of State James Madison gave his assurances that the purchase was well within even the strictest interpretation of the Constitution, the Senate quickly ratified the treaty, and the House immediately authorized funding. The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled
3072-494: A hallmark of American English spelling ( 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. Webster was a proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. In A Companion to the American Revolution (2008), John Algeo notes: "it
3264-405: A landslide election. Monroe believed that the existence of political parties was harmful to the United States, and he sought to usher in the end of the Federalist Party by avoiding divisive policies and welcoming ex-Federalists into the fold. Monroe favored infrastructure projects to promote economic development and, despite some constitutional concerns, signed bills providing federal funding for
3456-413: A large debt is a major legacy of the party. Andrew Jackson believed the national debt was a "national curse" and he took special pride in paying off the entire national debt in 1835. Politicians ever since have used the issue of a high national debt to denounce the other party for profligacy and a threat to fiscal soundness and the nation's future. The affiliation of many Congressmen in the earliest years
3648-472: A leading Federalist, used the term " Jacobin " to link members of Jefferson's party to the radicals of the French Revolution . He blamed the newspapers for electing Jefferson and wrote they were "an overmatch for any Government.... The Jacobins owe their triumph to the unceasing use of this engine; not so much to skill in use of it as by repetition". As one historian explained: "It was the good fortune of
3840-431: A listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages , often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for logographic languages), which may include information on definitions , usage, etymologies , pronunciations , translation , etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data. A broad distinction
4032-461: A major part of the coalition that propelled Jackson to victory in the 1828 election. The Democratic-Republican Party invented campaign and organizational techniques that were later adopted by the Federalists and became standard American practice. It was especially effective in building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast its statements and editorialize its policies. Fisher Ames ,
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#17328371655854224-657: A move away from the party's earlier emphasis on states' rights and a strict construction of the United States Constitution . The Federalists collapsed after 1815, beginning a period known as the Era of Good Feelings . Lacking an effective opposition, the Republicans split into rival groups after the 1824 presidential election : one faction supported President John Quincy Adams , while another faction backed General Andrew Jackson . Jackson's supporters eventually coalesced into
4416-483: A national university, a naval academy, and a national astronomical observatory. His requests to Congress galvanized the opposition, spurring the creation of an anti-Adams congressional coalition consisting of supporters of Jackson, Crawford, and Vice President Calhoun. Following the 1826 elections, Calhoun and Martin Van Buren (who brought along many of Crawford's supporters) agreed to throw their support behind Jackson in
4608-573: A number of websites which operate as online dictionaries, usually with a specialized focus. Some of them have exclusively user driven content, often consisting of neologisms . Some of the more notable examples are given in List of online dictionaries and Category:Online dictionaries . Democratic-Republican Party "Factions" The Republican Party , known retroactively as the Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as
4800-421: A potential tyrant. With Clay's backing, Adams won the contingent election. After Clay accepted appointment as Secretary of State, Jackson's supporters claimed that Adams and Clay had reached a " Corrupt Bargain " in which Adams promised Clay the appointment in return for Clay's support in the contingent election. Jackson, who was deeply angered by the result of the contingent election, returned to Tennessee, where
4992-467: A published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer , Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced spellings that became American English , replacing "colour" with "color", substituting "wagon" for "waggon", and printing "center" instead of "centre". He also added American words, like "skunk" and "squash", which did not appear in British dictionaries. At
5184-579: A similar edition. The 1828 edition of the American Dictionary of the English Language (2 volumes; New York: S. Converse) can be searched online at: DjVu and PDF versions can be viewed at the Internet Archive : Plain-text versions are also available from the Internet Archive (with some errors, due to automatic optical character recognition ). Dictionaries A dictionary is
5376-478: A successful "second war of independence", the Federalist Party slid towards national irrelevance. The subsequent period of virtually one-party rule by the Democratic-Republican Party is known as the " Era of Good Feelings ." In his first term, Madison and his allies had largely hewed to Jefferson's domestic agenda of low taxes and a reduction of the national debt, and Congress allowed the national bank's charter to expire during Madison's first term. The challenges of
5568-531: A third term, the 1796 presidential election became the first contested president election. Having retired from Washington's Cabinet in 1793, Jefferson had left the leadership of the Democratic-Republicans in Madison's hands. Nonetheless, the Democratic-Republican congressional nominating caucus chose Jefferson as the party's presidential nominee, in the belief that he would be the party's strongest candidate;
5760-579: A threat to freedom. Thus, the Democratic-Republicans opposed Federalist efforts to build a strong, centralized state, and resisted the establishment of a national bank, the build-up of the army and the navy, and passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson was especially averse to a national debt, which he believed to be inherently dangerous and immoral. After the party took power in 1800, Jefferson became increasingly concerned about foreign intervention and more open to programs of economic development conducted by
5952-440: A time when it had recently become illegal for Americans to own them, and when most other countries had withdrawn gold from active circulation as well. Early printings of this dictionary contained the erroneous ghost word dord . Because of its style and word coverage, Webster's Second is still a popular dictionary. For example, in the case of Miller Brewing Co. v. G. Heileman Brewing Co., Inc ., 561 F.2d 75 (7th Cir. 1977) –
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6144-481: A trademark dispute in which the terms "lite" and "light" were held to be generic for light beer and therefore available for use by anyone – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, after considering a definition from Webster's Third New International Dictionary , wrote that "[T]he comparable definition in the previous, and for many the classic, edition of the same dictionary is as follows:..." After about
6336-596: Is a human being but the direct user is a program. Such a dictionary does not need to be able to be printed on paper. The structure of the content is not linear, ordered entry by entry but has the form of a complex network (see Diathesis alternation ). Because most of these dictionaries are used to control machine translations or cross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) the content is usually multilingual and usually of huge size. In order to allow formalized exchange and merging of dictionaries, an ISO standard called Lexical Markup Framework (LMF) has been defined and used among
6528-462: Is a list of years of publication of the Collegiate dictionaries. Since the late 19th century, dictionaries bearing the name Webster's have been published by companies other than Merriam-Webster . Some of these were unauthorized reprints of Noah Webster's work; some were revisions of his work. One such revision was Webster's Imperial Dictionary , based on John Ogilvie 's The Imperial Dictionary of
6720-489: Is a sub-field dictionary. In terms of the coverage distinction between "minimizing dictionaries" and "maximizing dictionaries", multi-field dictionaries tend to minimize coverage across subject fields (for instance, Oxford Dictionary of World Religions and Yadgar Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms ) whereas single-field and sub-field dictionaries tend to maximize coverage within a limited subject field ( The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology ). Another variant
6912-417: Is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive. The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in
7104-585: Is considered the first dictionary of Arabic . The oldest existing Japanese dictionary, the c. 835 CE Tenrei Banshō Meigi , was also a glossary of written Chinese. In Frahang-i Pahlavig , Aramaic heterograms are listed together with their translation in the Middle Persian language and phonetic transcription in the Pazend alphabet. A 9th-century CE Irish dictionary, Sanas Cormaic , contained etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words. In
7296-601: Is made between general and specialized dictionaries . Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a comprehensive range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed to be semasiological , mapping word to definition , while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological , first identifying concepts and then establishing
7488-466: Is more prescriptive, offering warnings and admonitions against the use of certain words considered by many to be offensive or illiterate, such as, "an offensive term for..." or "a taboo term meaning...". Because of the widespread use of dictionaries in schools, and their acceptance by many as language authorities, their treatment of the language does affect usage to some degree, with even the most descriptive dictionaries providing conservative continuity. In
7680-462: Is not linked to Merriam-Webster Online . It is a multilingual online dictionary created in 1999 by Philip M. Parker . This site compiles different online dictionaries and encyclopedia including the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), Wiktionary and Misplaced Pages. Noah Webster's main competitor was Joseph Emerson Worcester , whose 1830 Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of
7872-477: Is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in America, but he did not originate them. Rather [...] he chose already existing options such as center, color and check on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology". In William Shakespeare 's First Folios , for example, spellings such as center and color are
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8064-414: Is prefixed an introductory dissertation on the origin, history and connection of the languages of western Asia and Europe, with an explanation of the principles on which languages are formed. B. L. Hamlen of New Haven, Connecticut , prepared the 1841 printing of the second edition. When Webster died, in 1843, his heirs sold unbound sheets of his 1841 revision American Dictionary of the English Language to
8256-546: Is respelled as "dĭk ′ shə-nĕr′ē" in the American Heritage Dictionary . The IPA is more commonly used within the British Commonwealth countries. Yet others use their own pronunciation respelling systems without diacritics: for example, dictionary may be respelled as DIK -shə-nerr-ee . Some online or electronic dictionaries provide audio recordings of words being spoken. Histories and descriptions of
8448-492: Is the glossary , an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialized field, such as medicine ( medical dictionary ). The simplest dictionary, a defining dictionary , provides a core glossary of the simplest meanings of the simplest concepts. From these, other concepts can be explained and defined, in particular for those who are first learning a language. In English, the commercial defining dictionaries typically include only one or two meanings of under 2000 words. With these,
8640-412: Is the corporate heir to Noah Webster's original works, which are in the public domain . Noah Webster (1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books which 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 popularized features which would become
8832-422: Is unlikely that a print version will ever be produced, because demand is declining and its increased size would make it unwieldy and expensive. Merriam-Webster introduced its Collegiate Dictionary in 1898 and the series is now in its eleventh edition. Following the publication of Webster's International in 1890, two Collegiate editions were issued as abridgments of each of their Unabridged editions. With
9024-555: The American College Dictionary and (non-Merriam) Webster's New World Dictionary , entered the market alongside the Collegiate . Among larger dictionaries during this period was (non-Merriam) Webster's Universal Dictionary (also published as Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary ) which traced its roots to Noah Webster and called itself "unabridged", but had less than half the vocabulary and paled in scholarship against
9216-534: The 1788–89 presidential election , the first such election following the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788, George Washington won the votes of every member of the Electoral College . His unanimous victory in part reflected the fact that no formal political parties had formed at the national level in the United States prior to 1789, though the country had been broadly polarized between
9408-478: The 1792 election , Washington effectively ran unopposed for president, but Jefferson and Madison backed New York Governor George Clinton 's unsuccessful attempt to unseat Vice President John Adams . Political leaders on both sides were reluctant to label their respective faction as a political party, but distinct and consistent voting blocs emerged in Congress by the end of 1793. Jefferson's followers became known as
9600-545: The Compendious (1806), and American (1828) dictionaries and brings into its discourse a range of concerns including the politics of American English, the question of national identity and culture in the early moments of American independence, and the poetics of citation and of definition. Webster's dictionaries were a redefinition of Americanism within the context of an emergent and unstable American socio-political and cultural identity. Webster's identification of his project as
9792-645: The Democratic Party , which dominated presidential politics in the decades prior to the Civil War. Supporters of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay would form the main opposition to Jackson as the National Republican Party , which in turn eventually formed part of the Whig Party , which was the second major party in the United States between the 1830s and the early 1850s. The diverse and changing nature of
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#17328371655859984-615: The Federalists , who supported ratification of the Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists , who opposed ratification. Washington selected Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State and Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury , and he relied on James Madison as a key adviser and ally in Congress. Hamilton implemented an expansive economic program, establishing the First Bank of
10176-662: The Free Soil Party and the Republican Party . Some Democratic-Republicans from the border states, including Henry Clay , continued to adhere to the Jeffersonian view of slavery as a necessary evil; many of these leaders joined the American Colonization Society , which proposed the voluntary recolonization of Africa as part of a broader plan for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Madison and Jefferson formed
10368-413: The French Revolution and Napoleonic wars . The party became increasingly dominant after the 1800 elections as the opposing Federalist Party collapsed. Increasing dominance over American politics led to increasing factional splits within the party. Old Republicans , led by John Taylor of Caroline and John Randolph of Roanoke , believed that the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—and
10560-464: The Jay Treaty with Britain further inflamed partisan warfare, resulting in a hardening of the divisions between the Federalists and the Republicans. By 1795–96, election campaigns—federal, state and local—were waged primarily along partisan lines between the two national parties, although local issues continued to affect elections, and party affiliations remained in flux. As Washington declined to seek
10752-553: The Jeffersonian Democratic Party ) , was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed liberalism , republicanism , individual liberty, equal rights, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, decentralization, free markets, free trade, and agrarianism . In foreign policy it was hostile to Great Britain and the Netherlands and in sympathy with
10944-465: The Leiden Glossary ). The Catholicon (1287) by Johannes Balbus , a large grammatical work with an alphabetical lexicon, was widely adopted. It served as the basis for several bilingual dictionaries and was one of the earliest books (in 1460) to be printed. In 1502 Ambrogio Calepino 's Dictionarium was published, originally a monolingual Latin dictionary, which over the course of the 16th century
11136-694: The Lisan al-`Arab (13th century, still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) and al-Qamus al-Muhit (14th century) listed words in the alphabetical order of the radicals. The Qamus al-Muhit is the first handy dictionary in Arabic, which includes only words and their definitions, eliminating the supporting examples used in such dictionaries as the Lisan and the Oxford English Dictionary . In medieval Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in vernacular or simpler Latin were in use (e.g.
11328-479: The Merriam editions. After the commercial success of Webster's Third New International in the 1960s, Random House responded by adapting its college dictionary by adding more illustrations and large numbers of proper names, increasing its print size and page thickness, and giving it a heavy cover. In 1966, it was published as a new "unabridged" dictionary. It was expanded in 1987, but it still covered no more than half
11520-515: The Monroe Doctrine , which reiterated the traditional U.S. policy of neutrality with regard to European wars and conflicts, but declared that the United States would not accept the recolonization of any country by its former European master. From the foundation of the party, slavery divided the Democratic-Republicans. Many Southern Democratic-Republicans, especially from the Deep South, defended
11712-831: The Napoleonic Wars continued, the British government announced the Orders in Council , which called for a blockade on French-controlled ports. In response to subsequent British and French searches of American shipping, the Jefferson administration passed the Embargo Act of 1807 , which cut off American trade with Europe. The embargo proved unpopular and difficult to enforce, especially in Federalist-leaning New England , and expired at
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#173283716558511904-513: The National Road and other projects. Partly due to the mismanagement of national bank president William Jones , the country experienced a prolonged economic recession known as the Panic of 1819 . The panic engendered a widespread resentment of the national bank and a distrust of paper money that would influence national politics long after the recession ended. Despite the ongoing economic troubles,
12096-537: The Oxford English Dictionary (1879–1928) says Webster's unabridged edition of 1864 "acquired an international fame. It was held to be superior to every other dictionary and taken as the leading authority on the meaning of words, not only in America and England, but also throughout the Far East." Porter also edited the succeeding edition, Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language (1890), which
12288-610: The Treaty of Ghent , ending the war without major concessions by either side. Though it had no effect on the treaty, Andrew Jackson 's victory in the January 1815 Battle of New Orleans ended the war on a triumphant note. Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 brought a final end to the Napoleonic Wars and European interference with American shipping. With Americans celebrating
12480-532: The Universal , for example, was minimally revised and remained largely out of date. So many dictionaries of varied size and quality have been called Webster's that the name no longer has any specific brand meaning. Despite this, many people still recognize and trust the name. Thus, Webster's continues as a powerful and lucrative marketing tool. In recent years, even established dictionaries with no direct link to Noah Webster whatsoever have adopted his name, adding to
12672-671: The Whiskey Rebellion and Washington's subsequent denunciation of the Democratic-Republican Societies , a type of new local political societies that favored democracy and generally supported the Jeffersonian position. Historians use the term "Democratic-Republican" to describe these new organizations, but that name was rarely used at the time. They usually called themselves "Democratic", "Republican", "True Republican", "Constitutional", "United Freeman", "Patriotic", "Political", "Franklin", or "Madisonian". The ratification of
12864-651: The XYZ Affair , outraged the American public and led to the Quasi-War , an undeclared naval war between France and the United States. The Federalist-controlled Congress passed measures to expand the American military and also pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts . These acts restricted speech critical of the government while also implementing stricter naturalization requirements. Numerous journalists and other individuals aligned with
13056-423: The undeclined or unconjugated form appears as the headword in most dictionaries. Dictionaries are most commonly found in the form of a book, but some newer dictionaries, like StarDict and the New Oxford American Dictionary are dictionary software running on PDAs or computers . There are also many online dictionaries accessible via the Internet . According to the Manual of Specialized Lexicographies ,
13248-414: The "Jeffersonian Republicans". The term "Democratic Party" was first used pejoratively by Federalist opponents. Historians argue that the party died out before the present-day Democratic Party was formed. However, since the days of Franklin Roosevelt Democratic politicians proudly claim Jefferson as their founder. The Democratic-Republican Party saw itself as a champion of republicanism and denounced
13440-414: The 12th century, The Karakhanid - Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari finished his work " Divan-u Lügat'it Türk ", a dictionary about the Turkic dialects, but especially Karakhanid Turkic . His work contains about 7500 to 8000 words and it was written to teach non Turkic Muslims, especially the Abbasid Arabs, the Turkic language. Al-Zamakhshari wrote a small Arabic dictionary called "Muḳaddimetü'l-edeb" for
13632-442: The 14th Congress compiled one of the most productive legislative records up to that point in history, enacting the Tariff of 1816 and establishing the Second Bank of the United States . At the party's 1816 congressional nominating caucus , Secretary of State James Monroe defeated Secretary of War William H. Crawford in a 65-to-54 vote. The Federalists offered little opposition in the 1816 presidential election and Monroe won in
13824-564: The 1800 elections. As president, Jefferson presided over a reduction in the national debt and government spending, and completed the Louisiana Purchase with France . Madison succeeded Jefferson as president in 1809 and led the country during the largely inconclusive War of 1812 with Britain . After the war, Madison and his congressional allies established the Second Bank of the United States and implemented protective tariffs , marking
14016-429: The 1828 election. In the press, the two major political factions were referred to as "Adams Men" and "Jackson Men". The Jacksonians formed an effective party apparatus that adopted many modern campaign techniques and emphasized Jackson's popularity and the supposed corruption of Adams and the federal government. Though Jackson did not articulate a detailed political platform in the same way that Adams did, his coalition
14208-420: The 1969 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , the first dictionary to use corpus linguistics . In a general dictionary, each word may have multiple meanings. Some dictionaries include each separate meaning in the order of most common usage while others list definitions in historical order, with the oldest usage first. In many languages, words can appear in many different forms, but only
14400-450: The 8th and 14th centuries, organizing words in rhyme order (by the last syllable), by alphabetical order of the radicals , or according to the alphabetical order of the first letter (the system used in modern European language dictionaries). The modern system was mainly used in specialist dictionaries, such as those of terms from the Qur'an and hadith , while most general use dictionaries, such as
14592-479: The Basis of Webster's English Dictionary . Editor John Ogilve used Webster's 1841 edition as a base, adding many new, specialized, and British words, increasing the vocabulary from Webster ' s 70,000 to more than 100,000. In response to Joseph Worcester's groundbreaking dictionary of 1860, A Dictionary of the English Language , the G. & C. Merriam Company created a significantly revised edition, A Dictionary of
14784-559: The Cabinet, but Jefferson appointed some prominent Federalists and allowed many other Federalists to keep their positions. Gallatin persuaded Jefferson to retain the First Bank of the United States, a major part of the Hamiltonian program, but other Federalist policies were scrapped. Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican allies eliminated the whiskey excise and other taxes, shrank the army and
14976-680: The Congresses led by Henry Clay —had in some ways betrayed the republican " Principles of '98 " by expanding the size and scope of the national government. The Republicans splintered during the 1824 presidential election . Those calling for a return to the older founding principles of the party were often referred to as "Democratic Republicans" (later Democrats ) while those embracing the newer nationalist principles of " The American System " were often referred to as National Republicans (later Whigs ). The Republican Party originated in Congress to oppose
15168-459: The Constitution, including James Madison, who were more accepting of Federalist economic programs and sought conciliation with moderate Federalists. After 1810, a younger group of nationalist Democratic-Republicans, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, rose to prominence. These nationalists favored federally funded internal improvements and high tariffs, positions that would form the basis for Clay's American System . In addition to its base among
15360-515: The Democratic Party, while supporters of Adams became known as the National Republican Party , which itself later merged into the Whig Party. Republicans were deeply committed to the principles of republicanism, which they feared were threatened by the aristocratic tendencies of the Federalists. During the 1790s, the party strongly opposed Federalist programs, including the national bank . After
15552-518: The Democratic-Republican Party allowed both major parties to claim that they stood for Jeffersonian principles. Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes that Democrats traced their heritage to the "Old Republicanism of Macon and Crawford ", while the Whigs looked to "the new Republican nationalism of Madison and Gallatin ." The Whig Party fell apart in the 1850s due to divisions over the expansion of slavery into new territories. The modern Republican Party
15744-560: The Democratic-Republican Party from a combination of former Anti-Federalists and supporters of the Constitution who were dissatisfied with the Washington administration's policies. Nationwide, Democratic-Republicans were strongest in the South, and many of party's leaders were wealthy Southern slaveowners. The Democratic-Republicans also attracted middle class Northerners, such as artisans, farmers, and lower-level merchants, who were eager to challenge
15936-405: The Democratic-Republican Party, but party members generally called themselves Republicans and voted for what they called the "Republican party", "republican ticket" or "republican interest". Jefferson and Madison often used the terms "republican" and "Republican party" in their letters. As a general term (not a party name), the word republican had been in widespread usage from the 1770s to describe
16128-455: The Democratic-Republican presidential nominating caucus chose George Clinton as Jefferson's running mate for the 1804 presidential election . That same year, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel after taking offense to a comment allegedly made by Hamilton; Hamilton died in the subsequent duel. Bolstered by a superior party organization, Jefferson won the 1804 election in a landslide over Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. In 1807, as
16320-523: The Democratic-Republicans were prosecuted under the Sedition Act, sparking a backlash against the Federalists. Meanwhile, Jefferson and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions , which held that state legislatures could determine the constitutionality of federal laws. In the 1800 presidential election , the Democratic-Republicans once again nominated a ticket of Jefferson and Burr. Shortly after
16512-529: The Dutch and the Germans call theirs, word-books, than dictionaries in the superior sense of that title." In 1616, John Bullokar described the history of the dictionary with his "English Expositor". Glossographia by Thomas Blount , published in 1656, contains more than 10,000 words along with their etymologies or histories. Edward Phillips wrote another dictionary in 1658, entitled " The New World of English Words : Or
16704-482: The English Language (1755) that a more reliable English dictionary was produced. Many people today mistakenly believe that Johnson wrote the first English dictionary: a testimony to this legacy. By this stage, dictionaries had evolved to contain textual references for most words, and were arranged alphabetically, rather than by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement, which meant all animals would be grouped together, etc.). Johnson's masterwork could be judged as
16896-503: The English Language , itself an expansion of Noah Webster's American Dictionary . Following legal action by Merriam, successive US courts ruled by 1908 that Webster's entered the public domain when the Unabridged did, in 1889. In 1917, a US court ruled that Webster's entered the public domain in 1834 when Noah Webster's 1806 dictionary's copyright lapsed. Thus, Webster's became a genericized trademark and others were free to use
17088-650: The English Language , published in 1883 by the Century Company, was more comprehensive than the Unabridged . The Century Dictionary , an expansion of the Imperial first published from 1889 to 1891, covered a larger vocabulary until the publication of Webster's Second in 1934, after the Century had ceased publication. In 1894 came Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary , an attractive one volume counterpart to Webster's International . The expanded New Standard of 1913
17280-432: The English Language brought accusations of plagiarism from Webster. The rivalry was carried on by Merriam after Webster's death, in what is often referred to as the "Dictionary Wars". After Worcester's death in 1865, revision of his Dictionary of the English Language was soon discontinued, and it eventually went out of print. The American edition of Charles Annandale's four volume revision of The Imperial Dictionary of
17472-651: The English Language in 1829, with the same number of words and Webster's full definitions, but with truncated literary references and expanded etymology. Although it was more successful financially than the original 1828 edition and was reprinted many times, Noah Webster was critical of it. Worcester and Goodrich's abridgment of Noah Webster's dictionary was published in 1841 by White and Sheffield, printed by E. Sanderson in Elizabethtown, N.J. and again in 1844 by publishers Harper and Brothers of New York City, in 1844, with added words as an appendix. Upon Webster's death in 1843,
17664-510: The English Language . It was edited by Yale University professor Noah Porter and published in 1864, containing 114,000 entries. It was sometimes referred to as the Webster–Mahn edition, because it featured revisions by C. A. F. Mahn , who replaced unsupportable etymologies which were based on Webster's attempt to conform to Biblical interpretations of the history of language. It was the first edition to largely overhaul Noah Webster's work, and
17856-567: The English Language; it took twenty-seven years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit . Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, France, and at the University of Cambridge . His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never appeared in
18048-558: The English language were glossaries of French, Spanish or Latin words along with their definitions in English. The word "dictionary" was invented by an Englishman called John of Garland in 1220 – he had written a book Dictionarius to help with Latin "diction". An early non-alphabetical list of 8000 English words was the Elementarie , created by Richard Mulcaster in 1582. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary
18240-426: The English language. The eleventh edition (published in 2003) includes more than 225,000 definitions, and more than 165,000 entries. A CD-ROM of the text is sometimes included. This dictionary is preferred as a source "for general matters of spelling" by The Chicago Manual of Style , which is followed by many book publishers and magazines in the United States. The Chicago Manual states that it "normally opts for"
18432-535: The Era of Good Feelings and the start of the Second Party System . The dream of non-partisan politics, shared by Monroe, Adams, and many earlier leaders, was shattered, replaced with Van Buren's ideal of partisan battles between legitimated political parties. In the 1790s, political parties were new in the United States and people were not accustomed to having formal names for them. There was no single official name for
18624-543: The Federalist-controlled Congress sought to establish a closed-door Grand Committee with powers to disqualify College electors . Adams was to name Duane one of the three or four men most responsible for his eventual defeat. Jefferson and Burr both finished with 73 electoral votes, more than Adams or Pinckney, necessitating a contingent election between Jefferson and Burr in the House of Representatives. Burr declined to take his name out of consideration, and
18816-506: The Federalists and some other congressmen from the Northeast. For many who favored war, national honor was at stake; John Quincy Adams wrote that the only alternative to war was "the abandonment of our right as an independent nation." George Clinton's nephew, DeWitt Clinton , challenged Madison in the 1812 presidential election . Though Clinton assembled a formidable coalition of Federalists and anti-Madison Democratic-Republicans, Madison won
19008-463: The Federalists as supporters of monarchy and aristocracy. Ralph Brown writes that the party was marked by a "commitment to broad principles of personal liberty, social mobility, and westward expansion." Political scientist James A. Reichley writes that "the issue that most sharply divided the Jeffersonians from the Federalists was not states rights, nor the national debt, nor the national Bank... but
19200-439: The Federalists failed to field a serious challenger to Monroe in the 1820 presidential election , and Monroe won re-election essentially unopposed. During the proceedings over the admission of Missouri Territory as a state, Congressman James Tallmadge, Jr. of New York "tossed a bombshell into the Era of Good Feelings" by proposing amendments providing for the eventual exclusion of slavery from Missouri. The amendments sparked
19392-460: The Federalists. The radicals consisted of a wide array of individuals from different sections of the country who were characterized by their support for far-reaching political and economic reforms; prominent radicals include William Duane and Michael Leib , who jointly led a powerful political machine in Philadelphia. The moderate faction consisted of many former supporters of the ratification of
19584-402: The House deadlocked as most Democratic-Republican congressmen voted for Jefferson and most Federalists voted for Burr. Preferring Jefferson to Burr, Hamilton helped engineer Jefferson's election on the 36th ballot of the contingent election. Jefferson would later describe the 1800 election, which also saw Democratic-Republicans gain control of Congress, as the "Revolution of 1800", writing that it
19776-473: The Republicans (or sometimes as the Democratic-Republicans) and Hamilton's followers became the Federalists . While economic policies were the original motivating factor in the growing partisan split, foreign policy became even more important as war broke out between Great Britain (favored by Federalists) and France , which Republicans favored until 1799. Partisan tensions escalated as a result of
19968-545: The Republicans to have within their ranks a number of highly gifted political manipulators and propagandists. Some of them had the ability... to not only see and analyze the problem at hand but to present it in a succinct fashion; in short, to fabricate the apt phrase, to coin the compelling slogan and appeal to the electorate on any given issue in language it could understand". Outstanding propagandists included editor William Duane (1760–1835) and party leaders Albert Gallatin , Thomas Cooper and Jefferson himself. Just as important
20160-587: The Sophist ( fl. 1st century CE) wrote the oldest surviving Homeric lexicon. The first Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa , was written by Amarasimha c. 4th century CE . Written in verse, it listed around 10,000 words. According to the Nihon Shoki , the first Japanese dictionary was the long-lost 682 CE Niina glossary of Chinese characters. Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi's 8th century Kitab al-'Ayn
20352-809: The Turkic-Khwarazm ruler Atsiz . In the 14th century, the Codex Cumanicus was finished and it served as a dictionary about the Cuman -Turkic language. While in Mamluk Egypt , Ebû Hayyân el-Endelüsî finished his work "Kitâbü'l-İdrâk li-lisâni'l-Etrâk", a dictionary about the Kipchak and Turcoman languages spoken in Egypt and the Levant . A dictionary called "Bahşayiş Lügati", which is written in old Anatolian Turkish, served also as
20544-502: The United States , and convincing Congress to assume the debts of state governments. Hamilton pursued his programs in the belief that they would foster a prosperous and stable country. His policies engendered an opposition, chiefly concentrated in the Southern United States , that objected to Hamilton's Anglophilia and accused him of unduly favoring well-connected wealthy Northern merchants and speculators. Madison emerged as
20736-628: The War of 1812 led many Democratic-Republicans to reconsider the role of the federal government. When the 14th Congress convened in December 1815, Madison proposed the re-establishment of the national bank, increased spending on the army and the navy, and a tariff designed to protect American goods from foreign competition. Madison's proposals were strongly criticized by strict constructionists like John Randolph , who argued that Madison's program "out-Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton." Responding to Madison's proposals,
20928-534: The War of 1812, Madison and many other party leaders came to accept the need for a national bank and federally funded infrastructure projects. In foreign affairs, the party advocated western expansion and tended to favor France over Britain, though the party's pro-French stance faded after Napoleon took power. The Democratic-Republicans were strongest in the South and the western frontier , and weakest in New England . In
21120-447: The West, and Jackson and Crawford competed for the South. As no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote in the 1824 election, the House of Representatives held a contingent election to determine the president. Clay personally disliked Adams but nonetheless supported him in the contingent election over Crawford, who opposed Clay's nationalist policies, and Jackson, whom Clay viewed as
21312-461: The abolition of slavery in Washington. In 1807, with President Jefferson's support, Congress outlawed the international slave trade , doing so at the earliest possible date allowed by the Constitution. After the War of 1812, Southerners increasingly came to view slavery as a beneficial institution rather than an unfortunate economic necessity, further polarizing the party over the issue. Anti-slavery Northern Democratic-Republicans held that slavery
21504-568: The actual use of words. Most dictionaries of English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition, and then, outside of the definition itself, provide information alerting readers to attitudes which may influence their choices on words often considered vulgar, offensive, erroneous, or easily confused. Merriam-Webster is subtle, only adding italicized notations such as, sometimes offensive or stand (nonstandard). American Heritage goes further, discussing issues separately in numerous "usage notes." Encarta provides similar notes, but
21696-449: The actual vocabulary of Webster's Third . The American Heritage Publishing Co., highly critical of Webster's Third , failed in an attempt to buy out Merriam-Webster and determined to create its own dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language . In 1969, it issued a college-sized dictionary. Now in its fifth edition, it is only slightly greater in vocabulary than the Collegiate , but it appears much larger and has
21888-477: The age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840, the second edition was published in two volumes. Webster's dictionary was acquired by G & C Merriam Co. in 1843, after his death, and has since been published in many revised editions. Merriam-Webster was acquired by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1964. Controversy over the lack of usage advice in the 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary spurred publication of
22080-556: The appeal of many pictures and other features, such as a usage panel of language professionals which is polled for the acceptability of certain word usage, and a discussion for some entries of subtle differences among words with similar meaning. Other medium-sized dictionaries have since entered the market, including the New Oxford American and the Encarta Webster's , while Merriam-Webster has not attempted to compete by issuing
22272-604: The car). Whereas hi taharóg otí , literally 'she will kill me', is colloquial, me (a variant of ma 'what') is archaic, resulting in a combination that is unutterable in real life. A historical dictionary is a specific kind of descriptive dictionary which describes the development of words and senses over time, usually using citations to original source material to support its conclusions. In contrast to traditional dictionaries, which are designed to be used by human beings, dictionaries for natural language processing (NLP) are built to be used by computer programs. The final user
22464-447: The caucus chose Senator Aaron Burr of New York as Jefferson's running mate. Meanwhile, an informal caucus of Federalist leaders nominated a ticket of John Adams and Thomas Pinckney . Though the candidates themselves largely stayed out of the fray, supporters of the candidates waged an active campaign; Federalists attacked Jefferson as a Francophile and atheist , while the Democratic-Republicans accused Adams of being an anglophile and
22656-407: The complete text, with thousands of additional new words and definitions from the "addenda", was published by Merriam-Webster in 2000, and is often packaged with the print edition. The third edition was published in 2000 on Merriam-Webster's website as a subscription service. Planning for a Fourth edition of the Unabridged began with a 1988 memo from Merriam-Webster president William Llewellyn but
22848-513: The confusion. Random House dictionaries are now called Random House Webster's , and Microsoft 's Encarta World English Dictionary is now Encarta Webster's Dictionary . The dictionary now called Webster's New Universal no longer even uses the text of the original Webster's New Universal dictionary, but rather is a newly commissioned version of the Random House Dictionary . The Webster's Online Dictionary: The Rosetta Edition
23040-517: The constitutionality of federal laws. By the time Jefferson took office, Americans had settled as far west as the Mississippi River . Many in the United States, particularly those in the west, favored further territorial expansion, and especially hoped to annex the Spanish province of Louisiana . In early 1803, Jefferson dispatched James Monroe to France to join ambassador Robert Livingston on
23232-571: The crucial state of New York. A significant element in the party's success in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other east-coast cities were United Irish exiles, and other Irish immigrants , whom the Federalists regarded with distinct suspicion. Among these was William Duane who in his newspaper, the Philadelphia Aurora , exposed the details of the Ross Bill , by means of which
23424-534: The dictionaries of other languages on Misplaced Pages include: The age of the Internet brought online dictionaries to the desktop and, more recently, to the smart phone. David Skinner in 2013 noted that "Among the top ten lookups on Merriam-Webster Online at this moment are holistic, pragmatic, caveat, esoteric and bourgeois. Teaching users about words they don't already know has been, historically, an aim of lexicography, and modern dictionaries do this well." There exist
23616-399: The election of a new generation of Democratic-Republican leaders, including Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun , who championed high tariffs , federally funded internal improvements and a jingoistic attitude towards Britain. On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war. The declaration was passed largely along sectional and party lines, with intense opposition coming from
23808-466: The end of Jefferson's second term. Jefferson declined to seek a third term in the 1808 presidential election , but helped Madison triumph over George Clinton and James Monroe at the party's congressional nominating caucus. Madison won the general election in a landslide over Pinckney. As attacks on American shipping continued after Madison took office, both Madison and the broader American public moved towards war. Public resentment towards Britain led to
24000-419: The federal government. In an effort to promote economic growth and the development of a diversified economy, Jefferson's Democratic-Republican successors would oversee the construction of numerous federally funded infrastructure projects and implement protective tariffs. While economic policies were the original catalyst to the partisan split between the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists, foreign policy
24192-464: The firm of J. S. & C. Adams of Amherst, Massachusetts . This firm bound and published a small number of copies in 1844 – the same edition that Emily Dickinson used as a tool for her poetic composition. However, a $ 15 (adjusted for inflation: $ 512.78) price tag on the book made it too expensive to sell easily, so the Amherst firm decided to sell out. Merriam acquired rights from Adams, as well as signing
24384-677: The first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca , for Italian , was published. It served as the model for similar works in French and English. In 1690 in Rotterdam was published, posthumously, the Dictionnaire Universel by Antoine Furetière for French . In 1694 appeared the first edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (still published, with the ninth edition not complete as of 2021 ). Between 1712 and 1721
24576-475: The first major national slavery debate since the ratification of the Constitution, and instantly exposed the sectional polarization over the issue of slavery. Northern Democratic-Republicans formed a coalition across partisan lines with the remnants of the Federalist Party in support of the amendments, while Southern Democratic-Republicans were almost unanimously against such the restrictions. In February 1820, Congressman Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois proposed
24768-466: The first spelling listed. In addition to its Collegiate editions G. & C. Merriam Co. also produced abridged editions for students ( Primary School, Elementary School, Secondary School, High School, Common School, Academic ) as well as for general public ( Condensed, Practical, Handy ). The first edition of the abridged Primary School dictionary was prepared by Noah Webster in 1833 and later revised by William G. Webster and William A. Wheeler. Below
24960-403: The first to be known as the Unabridged . Later printings included additional material: a "Supplement Of Additional Words And Definitions" containing more than 4,600 new words and definitions in 1879, A Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary containing more than 9,700 names of noteworthy persons in 1879, and a Pronouncing Gazetteer in 1884. The 1883 printing of the book contained 1,928 pages and
25152-555: The first to bring all these elements together, creating the first "modern" dictionary. Johnson's dictionary remained the English-language standard for over 150 years, until the Oxford University Press began writing and releasing the Oxford English Dictionary in short fascicles from 1884 onwards. A complete ten-volume first edition was not released until 1928. One of the main contributors to this modern dictionary
25344-684: The first volume of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal which was completed in 1998. Also in 1863 Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl published the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language . The Duden dictionary dates back to 1880, and is currently the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The decision to start work on the Svenska Akademiens ordbok was taken in 1787. The earliest dictionaries in
25536-421: The form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE . The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall , written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as
25728-421: The forthcoming elections. Every town manager was told by state leaders "to appoint a district manager in each district or section of his town, obtaining from each an assurance that he will faithfully do his duty". Then the town manager was instructed to compile lists and total the number of taxpayers and the number of eligible voters, find out how many favored the Republicans and how many the Federalists and to count
25920-481: The help of his son, William G. Webster. Its title page does not claim the status of second edition, merely noting that this new edition was the "first edition in octavo" in contrast to the quarto format of the first edition of 1828. Again in two volumes, the title page proclaimed that the Dictionary contained "the whole vocabulary of the quarto, with corrections, improvements and several thousand additional words: to which
26112-801: The industrial and academic community. In many languages, such as the English language, the pronunciation of some words is not consistently apparent from their spelling. In these languages, dictionaries usually provide the pronunciation. For example, the definition for the word dictionary might be followed by the International Phonetic Alphabet spelling / ˈ d ɪ k ʃ ə n ər i / (in British English) or / ˈ d ɪ k ʃ ə n ɛr i / (in American English). American English dictionaries often use their own pronunciation respelling systems with diacritics , for example dictionary
26304-460: The institution. Jefferson and many other Democratic-Republicans from Virginia held an ambivalent view on slavery; Jefferson believed it was an immoral institution, but he opposed the immediate emancipation of all slaves on social and economic grounds. Instead, he favored gradual phasing out of the institution. Meanwhile, Northern Democratic-Republicans often took stronger anti-slavery positions than their Federalist counterparts, supporting measures like
26496-478: The leader of the congressional opposition while Jefferson, who declined to publicly criticize Hamilton while both served in Washington's Cabinet, worked behind the scenes to stymie Hamilton's programs. Jefferson and Madison established the National Gazette , a newspaper which recast national politics not as a battle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, but as a debate between aristocrats and republicans. In
26688-467: The leaders of Clay and Calhoun's generation, nationalist policies also proved attractive to many older Democratic-Republicans, including James Monroe. The Panic of 1819 sparked a backlash against nationalist policies, and many of those opposed to the nationalist policies rallied around William H. Crawford until he had a major stroke in 1823. After the 1824 election, most of Crawford's followers, including Martin Van Buren, gravitated to Andrew Jackson, forming
26880-416: The long run, however, the meanings of words in English are primarily determined by usage, and the language is being changed and created every day. As Jorge Luis Borges says in the prologue to "El otro, el mismo": " It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature. " Sometimes
27072-472: The marketplace due to its much larger size. The New International editions continued to offer words and features not covered by the OED , and vice versa. In the 1970s, the OED began publishing Supplements to its dictionary and in 1989 integrated the new words in the supplements with the older definitions and etymologies in its Second Edition . Between the 1930s and the 1950s, several college dictionaries, notably
27264-406: The most common. He spent the next two decades working to expand his dictionary. In 1828, when Noah Webster was 70, his American Dictionary of the English Language was published by S. Converse in two quarto volumes containing 70,000 entries, as against the 58,000 of any previous dictionary. There were 2,500 copies printed, at $ 20 (adjusted for 2023 inflation: $ 647.73) for the two volumes. At first
27456-687: The name on their own works. Since then, use of the name Webster has been rampant. Merriam-Webster goes to great pains to remind dictionary buyers that it alone is the heir to Noah Webster. Although Merriam-Webster revisers find solid ground in Noah Webster's concept of the English language as an ever-changing tapestry, the issue is more complicated than that. Throughout the 20th century, some non-Merriam editions, such as Webster's New Universal , were closer to Webster's work than contemporary Merriam-Webster editions. Further revisions by Merriam-Webster came to have little in common with their original source, while
27648-420: The nation." Jefferson advocated a philosophy that historians call Jeffersonian democracy , which was marked by his belief in agrarianism and strict limits on the national government . Influenced by the Jeffersonian belief in equality, by 1824 all but three states had removed property-owning requirements for voting. Though open to some redistributive measures, Jefferson saw a strong centralized government as
27840-477: The nationalist and economically interventionist policies of Alexander Hamilton , who served as Secretary of the Treasury under President George Washington . The Republicans and the opposing Federalist Party each became more cohesive during Washington's second term, partly as a result of the debate over the Jay Treaty . Though he was defeated by Federalist John Adams in the 1796 presidential election , Jefferson and his Republican allies came into power following
28032-447: The navy, repealed the Alien and Sedition Acts, and pardoned all ten individuals who had been prosecuted under the acts. With the repeal of Federalist laws and programs, many Americans had little contact with the federal government in their daily lives, with the exception of the postal service . Partly as a result of these spending cuts, Jefferson lowered the national debt from $ 83 million to $ 57 million between 1801 and 1809. Though he
28224-478: The near-unanimous denunciation of that word by English teachers. Since the 1961 publication of the Third , Merriam-Webster has reprinted the main text of the dictionary with only minor corrections. To add new words, they created an Addenda Section in 1966, included in the front matter, which was expanded in 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1993, and 2002. However, the rate of additions was much slower than it had been throughout
28416-509: The ninth edition ( Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (WNNCD), published in 1983), the Collegiate adopted changes which distinguish it as a separate entity rather than merely an abridgment of the "Third New International." Some proper names were returned to the word list, including names of Knights of the Round Table . The most notable change was the inclusion of the date of the first known citation of each word, to document its entry into
28608-451: The number of illustrations. A new format feature, the divided page , was designed to save space by including a section of words below the line at the bottom of each page: six columns of very fine print, devoted to such items as rarely used, obsolete, and foreign words, abbreviations, and variant spellings. Notable improvement was made in the treatment and number of discriminated synonyms , comparisons of subtle shades of meaning. Also added
28800-419: The number of supporters of each party who were not eligible to vote but who might qualify (by age or taxes) at the next election. These highly detailed returns were to be sent to the county manager and in turn were compiled and sent to the state manager. Using these lists of potential voters, the managers were told to get all eligible people to town meetings and help the young men qualify to vote. The state manager
28992-503: The oldest, and often obsolete, usages listed first. For example, the first definition of starve includes dying of exposure to the elements as well as from lack of food. The numerous picture plates added to the book's appeal and usefulness, particularly when pertaining to things found in nature. Conversely, the plate showing the coins of the world's important nations quickly proved to be ephemeral. Numerous gold coins from various important countries were included, including American eagles, at
29184-507: The party remained competitive in New England and in some Mid-Atlantic states. Historian Sean Wilentz writes that, after assuming power in 1801, the Democratic-Republicans began to factionalize into three main groups: moderates, radicals, and Old Republicans . The Old Republicans, led by John Randolph , were a loose group of influential Southern plantation owners who strongly favored states' rights and denounced any form of compromise with
29376-528: The power of the local elite. Every state had a distinct political geography that shaped party membership; in Pennsylvania, the Republicans were weakest around Philadelphia and strongest in Scots-Irish settlements in the west. The Federalists had broad support in New England, but in other places they relied on wealthy merchants and landowners. After 1800, the Federalists collapsed in the South and West, though
29568-494: The previous hundred years. Following the purchase of Merriam-Webster by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in 1964, a three-volume version was issued for many years as a supplement to the encyclopedia. At the end of volume three, this edition included the Britannica World Language Dictionary , 474 pages of translations between English and French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish. A CD-ROM version of
29760-477: The question of social equality." In a world in which few believed in democracy or egalitarianism, Jefferson's belief in political equality stood out from many of the other leaders who held that the wealthy should lead society. His opponents, says Susan Dunn , warned that Jefferson's "Republicans would turn America upside down, permitting the hoi polloi to govern the nation and unseating the wealthy social elite, long accustomed to wielding political power and governing
29952-418: The rest of English, and even the 4000 most common English idioms and metaphors , can be defined. Lexicographers apply two basic philosophies to the defining of words: prescriptive or descriptive . Noah Webster , intent on forging a distinct identity for the American language, altered spellings and accentuated differences in meaning and pronunciation of some words. This is why American English now uses
30144-557: The same dictionary can be descriptive in some domains and prescriptive in others. For example, according to Ghil'ad Zuckermann , the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary is "at war with itself": whereas its coverage (lexical items) and glosses (definitions) are descriptive and colloquial, its vocalization is prescriptive. This internal conflict results in absurd sentences such as hi taharóg otí kshetiré me asíti lamkhonít (she'll tear me apart when she sees what I've done to
30336-403: The set sold poorly. When he lowered the price to $ 15 (adjusted for 2023 inflation: $ 485.80), its sales improved, and by 1836 that edition was exhausted. Not all copies were bound at the same time; the book also appeared in publisher's boards; other original bindings of a later date are not unknown. In 1841, 82-year-old Noah Webster published a second edition of his lexicographical masterpiece with
30528-486: The size of the United States, and Treasury Secretary Gallatin was forced to borrow from foreign banks to finance the payment to France. Though the Louisiana Purchase was widely popular, some Federalists criticized it; Congressman Fisher Ames argued that "We are to spend money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much." By 1804, Vice President Burr had thoroughly alienated Jefferson, and
30720-473: The spelling color while the rest of the English-speaking world prefers colour . (Similarly, British English subsequently underwent a few spelling changes that did not affect American English; see further at American and British English spelling differences .) Large 20th-century dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Webster's Third are descriptive, and attempt to describe
30912-403: The state legislature quickly nominated him for president in the 1828 election . Adams shared Monroe's goal of ending partisan conflict, and his Cabinet included individuals of various ideological and regional backgrounds. In his 1825 annual message to Congress, Adams presented a comprehensive and ambitious agenda, calling for major investments in internal improvements as well as the creation of
31104-423: The terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries , dictionaries of synonyms ( thesauri ), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary . There
31296-521: The text. His revisions remained close to Webster's work, but removed what later editors referred to as his "excrescences". In 1850, Blackie and Son in Glasgow published the first general dictionary of English that made heavy use of pictorial illustrations integrated with the text, The Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological, and Scientific, Adapted to the Present State of Literature, Science, and Art; On
31488-515: The time of the Akkadian Empire . The early 2nd millennium BCE Urra=hubullu glossary is the canonical Babylonian version of such bilingual Sumerian wordlists. A Chinese dictionary , the c. 3rd century BCE Erya , is the earliest surviving monolingual dictionary; and some sources cite the Shizhoupian (probably compiled sometime between 700 BCE to 200 BCE, possibly earlier) as
31680-444: The type of government the break-away colonies wanted to form: a republic of three separate branches of government derived from some principles and structure from ancient republics; especially the emphasis on civic duty and the opposition to corruption, elitism, aristocracy and monarchy. The term "Democratic-Republican" was used by contemporaries only occasionally, but is used by modern political scientists. Historians often refer to
31872-402: The unsold books and all rights to the copyright and name "Webster" were purchased by brothers George and Charles Merriam, who then hired Webster's son-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich , a professor at Yale College , to oversee revisions. Goodrich's New and Revised Edition appeared on September 24, 1847, and a Revised and Enlarged edition in 1859, which added a section of illustrations indexed to
32064-527: The work as radical – too inclusive in its lexicon and even bordering on vulgar. Meanwhile, Webster's old foes, the Jeffersonian Republicans , attacked the man, labeling him mad for such an undertaking. Scholars have long seen Webster's 1844 dictionary to be an important resource for reading poet Emily Dickinson 's life and work; she once commented that the "Lexicon" was her "only companion" for years. One biographer said, "The dictionary
32256-461: The work was completed in 1961. Between 1861 and 1874 was published the Dizionario della lingua italiana by Niccolò Tommaseo . Between 1862 and 1874 was published the six volumes of A magyar nyelv szótára (Dictionary of Hungarian Language) by Gergely Czuczor and János Fogarasi. Émile Littré published the Dictionnaire de la langue française between 1863 and 1872. In the same year 1863 appeared
32448-661: Was A Table Alphabeticall , written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604. The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford . This dictionary, and the many imitators which followed it, was seen as unreliable and nowhere near definitive. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield was still lamenting in 1754, 150 years after Cawdrey's publication, that it is "a sort of disgrace to our nation, that hitherto we have had no… standard of our language; our dictionaries at present being more properly what our neighbors
32640-457: Was "as real of a revolution in the principles of our government as that of [1776] was in its form." In the final months of his presidency, Adams reached an agreement with France to end the Quasi-War and appointed several Federalist judges, including Chief Justice John Marshall . Despite the intensity of the 1800 election, the transition of power from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans
32832-408: Was 8½ in (22 cm) wide by 11½ in (29 cm) tall by 4¼ in (11 cm) thick. The 1888 printing (revision?) is similarly sized, with the last printed page number "1935" which has on its back further content (hence, 1936th page), and closes with "Whole number of pages 2012". This dictionary carries the 1864 Preface by Noah Porter with postscripts of 1879 and 1884. James A.H. Murray, the editor of
33024-502: Was a twenty-page chart comparing the Webster's pronunciations with those offered by six other major dictionaries. This edition was reprinted in 1913. Being in the public domain and having been scanned and OCRd , this edition has had substantial influence on Wiktionary. In 1934, the New International Dictionary was revised and expanded for a second edition, which is popularly known as Webster's Second or W2 , although it
33216-461: Was a worthy challenge to the New International , and remained a major competitor for many years. However, Funk & Wagnalls never revised the work, reprinting it virtually unchanged for more than 50 years, while Merriam published two major revisions. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ), which published its complete first edition in 1933, challenged Merriam in scholarship, though not in
33408-515: Was also a major factor that divided the parties. Most Americans supported the French Revolution prior to the Execution of Louis XVI in 1793, but Federalists began to fear the radical egalitarianism of the revolution as it became increasingly violent. Jefferson and other Democratic-Republicans defended the French Revolution until Napoleon ascended to power. Democratic-Republican foreign policy
33600-523: Was an ex-army surgeon, William Chester Minor , a convicted murderer who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane. The OED remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day, with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months. In 1806, American Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language . In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of
33792-480: Was an expansion of the American Dictionary . It contained about 175,000 entries. In 1900, Webster's International was republished with a supplement that added 25,000 entries to it. In 1898, the Collegiate Dictionary also was introduced (see below). The Merriam Company issued a complete revision in 1909, Webster's New International Dictionary , edited by William Torrey Harris and F. Sturges Allen . Vastly expanded, it covered more than 400,000 entries, and double
33984-564: Was effective party organization of the sort that John J. Beckley pioneered. In 1796, he managed the Jefferson campaign in Pennsylvania, blanketing the state with agents who passed out 30,000 hand-written tickets, naming all 15 electors (printed tickets were not allowed). Beckley told one agent: "In a few days a select republican friend from the City will call upon you with a parcel of tickets to be distributed in your County. Any assistance and advice you can furnish him with, as to suitable districts & characters, will I am sure be rendered". Beckley
34176-440: Was enlarged to become a multilingual glossary. In 1532 Robert Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae latinae and in 1572 his son Henri Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae graecae , which served up to the 19th century as the basis of Greek lexicography. The first monolingual Spanish dictionary written was Sebastián Covarrubias 's Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española , published in 1611 in Madrid, Spain. In 1612
34368-403: Was firstly published in 1777; it has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published. The first edition of A Greek-English Lexicon by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott appeared in 1843; this work remained the basic dictionary of Greek until the end of the 20th century. And in 1858 was published the first volume of the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Brothers Grimm ;
34560-450: Was formed in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery, and many former Whig Party leaders joined the newly formed anti-slavery party. The Republican Party sought to combine Jefferson and Jackson's ideals of liberty and equality with Clay's program of using an active government to modernize the economy. The Democratic-Republican Party inspired the name and ideology of the Republican Party, but is not directly connected to that party. Fear of
34752-455: Was incompatible with the equality and individual rights promised by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They further held that slavery had been permitted under the Constitution only as a local and impermanent exception, and thus, slavery should not be allowed to spread outside of the original thirteen states. The anti-slavery positions developed by Northern Democratic-Republicans would influence later anti-slavery parties, including
34944-400: Was largely able to reverse Federalist policies, Federalists retained a bastion of power on the Supreme Court; Marshall Court rulings continued to reflect Federalist ideals until Chief Justice Marshall's death in the 1830s. In the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison , the Marshall Court established the power of judicial review , through which the judicial branch had the final word on
35136-431: Was largely ignored, and candidates were instead nominated by state legislatures. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, former Speaker of the House Henry Clay, Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, and General Andrew Jackson emerged as the major candidates in the election. The regional strength of each candidate played an important role in the election; Adams was popular in New England, Clay and Jackson were strong in
35328-432: Was marked by support for expansionism, as Jefferson championed the concept of an " Empire of Liberty " that centered on the acquisition and settlement of western territories. Under Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase, acquired Spanish Florida , and reached a treaty with Britain providing for shared sovereignty over Oregon Country . In 1823, the Monroe administration promulgated
35520-464: Was no mere reference book to her; she read it as a priest his breviary – over and over, page by page, with utter absorption."; Austin (2005) explores the intersection of lexicographical and poetic practices in American literature, and attempts to map out a "lexical poetics" using Webster's dictionaries. He shows the ways in which American poetry has inherited Webster and drawn upon his lexicography to reinvent it. Austin explicates key definitions from both
35712-595: Was not published under that title. It was edited by William Allan Neilson and Thomas A. Knott . It contained 3,350 pages and sold for $ 39.50 (adjusted for inflation: $ 755.77). Some versions added a 400-page supplement called A Reference History of the World , which provided chronologies "from earliest times to the present". The editors claimed more than 600,000 entries, more than any other dictionary at that time, but that number included many proper names and newly added lists of undefined " combination words ". Multiple definitions of words are listed in chronological order, with
35904-433: Was peaceful. In his inaugural address, Jefferson indicated that he would seek to reverse many Federalist policies, but he also emphasized reconciliation, noting that "every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle". He appointed a geographically balanced and ideologically moderate Cabinet that included Madison as Secretary of State and Albert Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury; Federalists were excluded from
36096-411: Was published the Vocabulario portughez e latino written by Raphael Bluteau. The Royal Spanish Academy published the first edition of the Diccionario de la lengua española (still published, with a new edition about every decade) in 1780; their Diccionario de Autoridades , which included quotes taken from literary works, was published in 1726. The Totius Latinitatis lexicon by Egidio Forcellini
36288-410: Was repeatedly deferred in favor of updates to the more lucrative Collegiate . Work on a full revision finally began in 2009. In January 2013, the Third New International website service was rebranded as the Unabridged with the first "Release" of 4,800 new and revised entries added to the site. There were two further "Releases" in 2014. The revised website is not branded as the "Fourth edition" and it
36480-565: Was responsible for supplying party newspapers to each town for distribution by town and district managers. This highly coordinated " get-out-the-vote " drive would be familiar to future political campaigners, but was the first of its kind in world history. The Federalists collapsed after 1815, beginning a period known as the Era of Good Feelings . After the 1824 presidential election the Democratic-Republicans split into factions. The coalition of Jacksonians, Calhounites, and Crawfordites built by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren coalesced into
36672-418: Was the first American professional campaign manager and his techniques were quickly adopted in other states. The emergence of the new organizational strategies can be seen in the politics of Connecticut around 1806, which have been well documented by Cunningham. The Federalists dominated Connecticut, so the Republicans had to work harder to win. In 1806, the state leadership sent town leaders instructions for
36864-407: Was united in opposition to Adams's reliance on government planning and tended to favor the opening of Native American lands to white settlement. Ultimately, Jackson won 178 of the 261 electoral votes and just under 56 percent of the popular vote. Jackson won 50.3 percent of the popular vote in the free states and 72.6 percent of the vote in the slave states. The election marked the permanent end of
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