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Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language
Samuel Johnson. A dictionary of the English language : in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, A history of the language, and An English grammar. London : Printed by W. Strahan, 1755. [Guy's Historical Books Coll. FOL. PE1620. JOH]
Reference: ESTC t117231
In the first half of the eighteenth century there was no rival in the English language to the dictionaries, such as the Vocabulario degli Accademici della Crusca and Le dictionnaire de l'Academie Francaise, produced by the continental academies. Some, such as Alexander Pope and Joseph Addison, had proposed such a work but none had undertaken it until Samuel Johnson started work on A dictionary of the English language, which was published in 1755.
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| Title page of : Samuel Johnson. A dictionary of the English language : in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. London : Printed by W. Strahan, 1755. |
Johnson's dictionary was not the first English dictionary to have been compiled. Most notable of those that had gone before were Cockeram's English Dictionarie, or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words (1623), Edward Phillips's A New World of English Words (1658) and Bailey's Universal Etymological Dictionary (1721). However, Johnson's dictionary was the first in the English language to match in scope the dictionaries produced by the continental academies.
Johnson was paid 1,500 guineas by a consortium of booksellers to produce the dictionary. The work was expected to take three years but eventually took nine. It finally appeared in 1755 in two large folio volumes and contained the definitions of over 40,000 words. Johnson's main innovation was that he included quotations to illustrate the meaning and usage of words. Johnson included 114,000 quotations from various sources. He did not restrict himself to quoting literary sources but also quoted extensively from scientific, medical, legal and theological works. It was also more comprehensive than previous dictionaries. For example, McAdam and Milne have pointed out that while Cockeram gave no definitions of "to take" and Bailey gave only eighteen, Johnson gave 134.
Johnson's dictionary is full of humour. His description of oats as a "grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people" is well known. He defines pension as an allowance made without equivalent, which in " England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country". He defines excise as a "hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid".
Occasionally he allows his personal views to colour the definitions of words. He obviously had Lord Chesterfield in mind when he defined a patron as "one who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery". Lord Chesterfield had refused Johnson any real financial aid while he was compiling the dictionary but when it neared completion hinted that he would like it dedicated to him. He gives us a glimpse of his personal views when he describes the sonnet as a form "not very suitable to the English language." Sometimes Johnson makes mistakes, as when he describes the word "pastern" as meaning as the knee of a horse when it is in fact the foot of a horse. This error was not corrected for eighteen years.
The dictionary soon went into a second edition and an abridged octavo version was also published. For the fourth edition, which appeared in 1773, Johnson revised the text substantially. He corrected errors and added more illustrative quotations from technical literature and other works, particularly from the Bible and Milton. Many other quotations were deleted. The dictionary went into several more editions during Johnson's lifetime both in folio and abridged versions and new editions continued to be published well into the nineteenth century. It became the standard English dictionary and remained so until the advent of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Also of interest
The Foyle Special Collections Library holds several later editions of A dictionary of the English language both in folio and abridged versions, as well as a wealth of other significant dictionaries, such as:
Thomas Sheridan. A general dictionary of the English language : one main object of which, is, to establish a plain and permanent standard of pronunciation. To which is prefixed A rhetorical grammar . 2 v. London : Printed for J. Dodsley ... , 1780.[ Rare Books Collection PE1620. Sh5]
Nathan Bailey. An universal etymological English dictionary : comprehending the derivations of the generality of words in the English tongue ... And also a brief and clear explication of all difficult words ... . London : Printed for J. Buckland, J. Beecroft , 1770. [Marsden Collection O3/7]
John Kersey. Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum, or, A general English dictionary : comprehending a brief, but emphatical and clear explication of all sorts of difficult words, that derive their original from other ancient and modern languages ... To which is added, a large collection of words and phrases, as well Latin as English ... . London : Printed for J. Phillips ... J. Taylor ... and Administrat. of H. Rhodes, 1721. [Rare Books Collection PE1620 K4]
Robert James. A medicinal dictionary, including physic, surgery, anatomy, chymistry, and botany, in all their branches relative to medicine : Together with a history of drugs; an account of their various preparations, combinations, and uses; and an introductory preface, tracing the progress of physic, and explaining the theories which have principally prevail'd in all ages of the world. 3 v. London : Printed for T. Osborne ... and sold by J. Roberts, 1743-1745. [Guy's Physical Society Books Collection FOL. R121 JAM]
John Florio. A worlde of wordes, or, Most copious, and exact
dictionarie in Italian and English.London : printed by Arnold Hatfield for
Edw. Blount, 1598. [Rare Books Collection PR2276.F5 W8]
Further reading
Allen Reddick. The making of Johnson's Dictionary, 1746-1773. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 1990. [Humanities Books PE1617. J7 RED]
De Witt Talmage Starnes and Gertrude E. Noyes. The English dictionary from
Cawdrey to Johnson, 1604-1755 . Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina
Press , 1946. [Humanities Books PE1611. St2]
McAdam and Milne (eds.) Johnson's dictionary : modern selection. London : Cassell , 1995. [Humanities Books PE1620. JOH]
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