View source for A Dictionary of the English Language

{{short description|1755 dictionary by Samuel Johnson}}
<!-- This article contains links to, or uses references to [[WP:Non-free content|proprietary services or sites]]. The links concerned should be carefully reviewed with a view to their replacement (if possible) with reliable official or 'freely-licensed' alternatives. -->
{{Use British English|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Infobox book 
| name           = A Dictionary of the English Language
| image          = JohnsonDictionary.png
| caption  = Title page from the second edition of the ''Dictionary''
| author         = [[Samuel Johnson]]
| illustrator    =
| cover_artist   =
| country        = Great Britain
| language       = English
| series         =
| subject        = [[Dictionary]]
| publisher      = consortium
| release_date   = 15 April 1755
| english_release_date =
| pages          = 2348<ref>[https://archive.org/details/johnsons_dictionary_1755 ''A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755''], [[archive.org]]</ref>
|wikisource = A Dictionary of the English Language <!-- Only preface -->
}}

'''''A Dictionary of the English Language''''', sometimes published as '''''Johnson's Dictionary''''', was published on 15 April 1755 and written by [[Samuel Johnson]].<ref name="Stone">{{Cite book |last=Stone |first=Emily |url=https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003195412 |title=Cat People: Human–Cat Interrelatedness in the Cat Fancy |date=2022-07-31 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-003-19541-2 |location=London}}</ref><ref>Advertisement in Derby Mercury 4 April 1755, page 4 'This day is published a Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson'</ref> It is among the most influential [[dictionary|dictionaries]] in the history of the [[English language]].

There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a group of London booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500 [[Guinea (British coin)|guineas]] (£1,575), equivalent to about £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|1575|1746|r=-4}}|0}} in {{inflation/year|UK}}.{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} Johnson took seven years to complete the work, although he had claimed he could finish it in three. He did so single-handedly, with only clerical assistance to copy the illustrative quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson produced several revised editions during his life.

Until the completion of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' 173&nbsp;years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary. According to [[Walter Jackson Bate]], the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time".<ref>Bate, Walter Jackson. ''Samuel Johnson'', Ch. 15, "Storming the Main Gate: The ''Dictionary''". New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.</ref>

== Background ==
In earlier times, books had been regarded with something approaching veneration, but by the mid-eighteenth century this was no longer the case. The rise of literacy among the general public, combined with the technical advances in the mechanics of [[printing]] and [[bookbinding]], meant that for the first time, books, texts, maps, pamphlets and newspapers were widely available to the general public at a reasonable cost. Such an explosion of the printed word demanded a set pattern of grammar, definition, and spelling for those words. This could be achieved by means of an authoritative dictionary of the English language. In 1746, a consortium of London's most successful printers, including [[Robert Dodsley]] and Thomas [[Longman]] – none could afford to undertake it alone – set out to satisfy and capitalise on this need by the ever-increasing reading and writing public.

Johnson's dictionary was not the first English dictionary, nor even among the first dozen. Over the previous 150&nbsp;years [[Early English dictionaries|more than twenty dictionaries]] had been published in England, the oldest of these being a Latin-English "wordbook" by Sir [[Thomas Elyot]] published in 1538.

The next to appear was by [[Richard Mulcaster]], a headmaster, in 1583. Mulcaster compiled what he termed "a generall table [of eight thousand words] we commonlie use...[yet] It were a thing verie praise worthy...if som well learned...would gather all words which we use in the English tung...into one dictionary..."<ref>Hitchings 2005, London p.&nbsp;48; New York p.&nbsp;53</ref>  In 1598, an Italian–English dictionary by [[John Florio]] was published. It was the first English dictionary to use quotations ("illustrations") to give meaning to the word; in none of these dictionaries so far were there any actual definitions of words. This was to change, to a small extent, in schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey's ''[[Table Alphabeticall]]'', published in 1604. Though it contained only 2,449 words, and no word beginning with the letters ''W'', ''X'', or ''Y'', this was the first monolingual English dictionary.  Several more dictionaries followed: in [[Latin]], English, French and Italian. [[Benjamin Martin (lexicographer)|Benjamin Martin]]'s ''Lingua Britannica Reformata'' (1749) and [[Robert Ainsworth (lexicographer)|Ainsworth's]] ''Thesaurus Linguae Latinae'' (1737) are both significant, in that they define entries in separate senses, or aspects, of the word. In English (among others), [[John Cowell (jurist)|John Cowell]]'s ''Interpreter'', a law dictionary, was published in 1607, [[Edward Phillips]]' ''[[The new world of English words]]'' came out in 1658 and a dictionary of 40,000 words had been prepared in 1721 by [[Nathan Bailey]], though none was as comprehensive in breadth or style as Johnson's.

The problem with these dictionaries was that they tended to be little more than poorly organised and poorly researched glossaries of "hard words": words that were technical, foreign, obscure or antiquated. But perhaps the greatest single fault of these early [[lexicographers]] was, as historian [[Henry Hitchings]] put it, that they "failed to give sufficient sense of [the English] language as it appeared ''in use''."<ref>Hitchings 2005, London p.&nbsp;49; New York p.&nbsp;55</ref> In that sense Dr. Johnson's dictionary was the first to comprehensively document the English lexicon.

=== Johnson's preparation ===
{{main|Letter to Chesterfield}}
Johnson's dictionary was prepared at [[Dr. Johnson's House|17 Gough Square]], London, an eclectic household, between the years of 1746 and 1755. By 1747 Johnson had written his ''Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language'', which spelled out his intentions and proposed methodology for preparing his document. He clearly saw benefit in drawing from previous efforts, and saw the process as a parallel to [[Precedent|legal precedent]] (possibly influenced by Cowell):
{{blockquote|I shall therefore, since the rules of stile, like those of law, arise from precedents often repeated, collect the testimonies of both sides, and endeavour to discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long possessed whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words.}}

Johnson's ''Plan'' received the patronage of [[Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield]] but not to Johnson's pleasure.<ref>Lane pp. 117–118</ref> Chesterfield did not care about praise, but was instead interested by Johnson's abilities.<ref name="Lane p. 118">Lane p. 118</ref> Seven years after first meeting Johnson to discuss the work, Chesterfield wrote two anonymous essays in ''The World'' that recommended the ''Dictionary''.<ref name="Lane p. 118"/> He complained that the English language was lacking structure and argued:
{{blockquote|We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion, and choose a dictator. Upon this principle, I give my vote for Mr Johnson to fill that great and arduous post.<ref name="Lane p. 121">Lane p. 121</ref>}}
However, Johnson did not appreciate the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield had not made good on his promise to be the work's patron.<ref name="Lane p. 121"/> In a letter, Johnson explained his feelings about the matter:
{{blockquote|Seven years, my lord, have now past since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before&nbsp;... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it.<ref>Johnson ''Letters'' No. 56</ref>}}

==The text==
''A Dictionary of the English Language'' was somewhat large and very expensive. It was printed in-folio, meaning that the pages were {{convert|18|in|cm}} tall and nearly {{convert|20|in|cm}} wide. The paper was of the finest quality available, the cost of which ran to nearly £1,600; more than Johnson had been paid to write the book. Johnson himself pronounced the book ''"Vasta mole superbus"'' ("Proud in its great bulk").<ref>Hitchings 2005, London p. 195; New York p. 209</ref> No bookseller could possibly hope to print this book without help; outside a few [[special edition]]s of the Bible no book of this heft and size had ever been set to type.

The [[title page]] reads:
<blockquote>
{{center|1=
A
<br/>'''DICTIONARY'''
<br/>of the
<br/><span style="color:red;">'''ENGLISH LANGUAGE'''</span>:
<br/>in which
<br/>The WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS,
<br/>and
<br/>ILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS
<br/>by
<br/>EXAMPLES from the best WRITERS.
<br/>To which are prefixed,
<br/>A '''HISTORY''' of the '''LANGUAGE,'''
<br/>and AN '''ENGLISH GRAMMAR.'''
<br/>By <span style="color:red;">SAMUEL JOHNSON</span>, A.M.
<br/>In TWO Volumes
<br/>VOL. I
}}
</blockquote>
The words "Samuel Johnson" and "English Language" were printed in red; the rest was printed in black. The preface and headings were set in 4.6&nbsp;mm "English" [[Typeface|type]], the text—double columned—was set in 3.5&nbsp;mm [[Pica (typography)|pica]]. This first edition of the dictionary contained a 42,773-word list, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions. One of Johnson's important innovations was to illustrate the [[semantics|meanings]] of his words by [[literature|literary]] quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[John Milton|Milton]] and [[John Dryden|Dryden]]. For example:

:'''OPULENCE'''

:Wealth; riches; affluence

:"There in full ''opulence'' a banker dwelt,
:Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt;
:His sideboard glitter'd with imagin'd plate,
:And his proud fancy held a vast estate."
:-- [[Jonathan Swift]]

Furthermore, Johnson, unlike Bailey, added notes on a word's usage, rather than being merely descriptive.

Unlike most modern [[lexicographer]]s, Johnson introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. Among the best-known are:
*"[[Excise]]: 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"<ref>See [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofengl01johnuoft#page/n725/mode/2up online copy of sixth edition]</ref>
*"[[Lexicographer]]: a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words"<ref>See [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofengl02johnuoft#page/n37/mode/2up online copy of sixth edition]</ref>
*"[[Oat]]s: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people"<ref>See [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofengl02johnuoft#page/n205/mode/2up online copy of sixth edition]</ref>

A couple of less well-known examples are:
*"Monsieur: a term of reproach for a Frenchman"<ref>See [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofengl02johnuoft#page/n147/mode/2up online copy of sixth edition]</ref>
*"Patron: One who countenances, supports, or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery."<ref>See [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofengl02johnuoft#page/n291/mode/2up onlike copy of sixth edition]</ref> which some have understood to be a jab at his patron Philip Stanhope.<ref>Winchester, Simon.  ''The Professor and the Madman.'' HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.</ref>

He included whimsical little-known words, such as:
*"Writative – A word of [[Alexander Pope|Pope's]], not to be imitated: "Increase of years makes men more talkative but less ''writative''; to that degree I now write letters but of plain how d'ey's.""<ref>Kacirk, Jeffrey, ''Forgotten English'', 21 May (page)</ref>

On a more serious level, Johnson's work showed a heretofore unseen meticulousness. Unlike all the proto-dictionaries that had come before, painstaking care went into the completeness when it came not only to "illustrations" but also to definitions as well:
*"Turn" had 16 definitions with 15 illustrations
*"Time" had 20 definitions with 14 illustrations
*"Put" ran more than 5,000 words spread over 3 pages
*"Take" had 134 definitions, running 8,000 words, over 5 pages<ref>Hitchings 2005, London p. 87; New York p. 93</ref>

The original goal was to publish the dictionary in two [[Book size|folio]] volumes: A–K and L–Z. But that soon proved unwieldy, unprofitable, and unrealistic. Subsequent printings ran to four volumes; even these formed a stack {{convert|10|in|cm}} tall, and weighed in at nearly {{convert|21|lb|kg}}.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}} In addition to the sheer physical heft of Johnson's dictionary, came the equally hefty price: £4/10/– (equivalent to approximately £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|4.5|1755|r=0}}|0}} in {{inflation/year|UK}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} So discouraging was the price that by 1784, thirty years after the first edition was published, when the dictionary had by then run through five editions, only about 6,000 copies were in circulation—an average sale of 200 books a year for thirty years.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}

Johnson's [[etymology|etymologies]] would be considered poor by modern standards, and he gave little guide to pronunciation; one example being "Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity. It is pronounced coff". Much of his dictionary was [[Linguistic prescription|prescriptivist]]. It was also linguistically conservative, advocating traditional spellings such as ''publick'' rather than the simpler spellings that would be favoured 73&nbsp;years later by [[Noah Webster]].

The dictionary is in alphabetical order according to the eighteenth-century [[English alphabet]]. In the eighteenth century, the letters I and J were considered different forms of the same letter; the same with letters U and V. As a result, in Johnson's dictionary the word jargon comes before the word idle, and vagabond comes before ultimate.<ref>''[https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/guide.php Guide to Dictionary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926150602/https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/guide.php |date=26 September 2021 }}, Johnson's Dictionary Online]''</ref>

In spite of its shortcomings, the dictionary was far and away the best of its day. Its scope and structure were carried forward in dictionaries that followed, including Noah Webster's [[American Dictionary of the English Language|''Webster's Dictionary'']] in 1828 and the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' later in the same century.

== Reception history ==
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?180212-1/samuel-johnsons-dictionary Presentation by Jack Lynch on ''Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English Language'', January 14, 2004], [[C-SPAN]]}}

=== Initial reception ===
From the beginning there was universal appreciation not only of the content of the ''Dictionary'' but also of Johnson's achievement in single-handedly creating it: "When Boswell came to this part of Johnson's life, more than three decades later, he pronounced that 'the world contemplated with wonder so stupendous a work achieved by one man, while other countries had thought such undertakings fit only for whole academies'."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;198</ref> "The ''Dictionary'' was considered, from the moment of its inception, to be Johnson's, and from the time of its completion it was ''Johnson's Dictionary''—his book and his property, his monument, his memorial."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;200</ref>

Immediately after publication "The ''Dictionary'' was enthusiastically written up in important periodicals such as the ''[[London Magazine]]'' and—none too surprisingly—the ''[[Gentleman's Magazine]]''. In the latter it received an eight-page notice".<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;198–9</ref> Reviews, such as they were, proved generous in tone: "Of the less positive assessments the only properly judicious one came from [[Adam Smith]] in the pro-Whig ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' ... he wished that Johnson 'had oftener passed his own censure upon those words which are not of approved use, though sometimes to be met with in authors of no mean name'. Furthermore, Johnson's approach was not 'sufficiently grammatical'".<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;199</ref>

Despite the ''Dictionary''{{'}}s critical acclaim, Johnson's general financial situation continued in its dismal fashion for some years after 1755: "The image of Johnson racing to write ''Rasselas'' to pay for his mother's funeral, romantic hyperbole though it is, conveys the precariousness of his existence, almost four years after his work on the ''Dictionary'' was done. His financial uncertainties continued. He gave up the house in Gough Square in March 1759, probably for lack of funds. Yet, just as Johnson was plunging into another trough of despondency, the reputation of the ''Dictionary'' at last brought reward. In July 1762 Johnson was granted a state pension of £300 a year by the twenty-four-year-old monarch, [[George III]]. The pension did not make him rich, but it ensured he would no longer have to grub around for the odd guinea."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;203</ref>

=== Criticism ===
As lexicography developed, faults were found with Johnson's work: "From an early stage there were noisy detractors. Perhaps the loudest of them was [[John Horne Tooke]] ... Not content to pronounce it 'imperfect and faulty', he complained that it was 'one of the most idle performances ever offered to the public', that its author 'possessed not one single requisite for the undertaking', that its grammatical and historical parts were 'most truly contemptible performances', and that 'nearly one third ... is as much the language of the [[Khoikhoi|Hottentots]] as of the English'."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;221</ref> "[[Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford|Horace Walpole]] summed up for the unbelievers when he pronounced at the end of the eighteenth century, 'I cannot imagine that Dr Johnson's reputation will be very lasting.' His dictionary was 'a surprising work for one man', but 'the task is too much for one man, and ... a society should alone pretend to publish a standard dictionary.' Notwithstanding Walpole's reservations, the admirers out-numbered the detractors, and the reputation of the ''Dictionary'' was repeatedly boosted by other philologists, lexicographers, educationalists and word detectives."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;222</ref>

Johnson's dictionary was made when [[etymology]] was largely based on guesswork. His [[Classics|Classical]] leanings led him to prefer spellings that pointed to Latin or Greek sources, "while his lack of sound scholarship prevented him from detecting their frequent errors". For example, he preferred the spelling ''[[wikt:ache|ache]]'' over ''[[wikt:ake|ake]]'' as he wrongly thought it came from the Greek ''achos''. Some of his spelling choices were also inconsistent: "while retaining the Latin ''p'' in ''receipt'' he left it out of ''deceit''; he spelled ''deign'' one way and ''disdain'' another; he spelled ''uphill'' but ''downhil'', ''muckhill'' but ''dunghil'', ''instill'' but ''distil'', ''inthrall'' but ''disenthral''".<ref>[https://archive.org/details/handbooksimplif00boargoog ''Handbook of Simplified Spelling'']. [[Simplified Spelling Board]], 1920. p.&nbsp;7</ref>

Boswell<ref>{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JLQxAQAAMAAJ&q=Johnson+Dictionary+network+ignorance+madam&pg=PA176
|title=''The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1'' |last=Boswell |first=James |date=1791 |publisher=Sturgis & Walton |access-date=9 July 2017 }}</ref> relates that "A lady once asked him [Johnson] how he came to define ''[[wikt:pastern|pastern]]'' as the ''knee'' of a horse: instead of making an elaborate reply, as she expected, he at once replied, 'Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.'" On the same page, Boswell notes that Johnson's definition of ''[[wikt:network|network]]'' ("Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections")<ref>{{cite web |url=http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?p=5711 |title=Network – A Dictionary of the English Language |website="Johnson's Dictionary Online" |last=Johnson |first=Samuel |year=1755 |access-date=9 July 2017 }}</ref> "has often been quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain."

Other than stress indication, the dictionary did not feature many word-specific orthoepical guidelines, with Johnson stating that 'For&nbsp;pronunciation, the best general rule is, to consider those as the most elegant speakers who deviate least from the written sounds' and referring to the irregular pronunciations as 'jargon'; this was subject to coetaneous criticism by [[John Walker (lexicographer)|John Walker]], who wrote in the preface of his ''[[A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language|Critical Pronouncing Dictionary]]'' 'It is certain, where custom  is equal, this ought to take place; and if the whole body of respectable English speakers were equally divided in their pronunciation of the word ''busy'', one half pronouncing it ''bew-ze'', and the other half ''biz-ze'', that the former ought to be accounted the most elegant speakers; but till this is the case, the latter pronunciation, though a gross deviation from orthography, will be esteemed the most elegant. Dr.&nbsp;Johnson's general rule, therefore, can only take place where custom has not plainly decided.'<ref>{{Cite book|last=Walker|first=John|url=http://archive.org/details/acriticalpronou00conggoog|title=A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language ... To which are prefixed, principles of English pronunciation ... Likewise rules to be observed by the natives of Scotland, Ireland, and London, for avoiding their respective peculiarities; and directions to foreigners for acquiring a knowledge of the use of this dictionary. The whole interspersed with observations, philological, critical, and grammatical|date=1791|publisher=London, G.G.J. and J. Robinson|others=New York Public Library|pages=iv–v}}</ref> Nevertheless, Walker scrupulously followed Johnson's explanations of words, as did many contemporary dictionaries.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Walker|first=John|url=http://archive.org/details/acriticalpronou00conggoog|title=A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language ... To which are prefixed, principles of English pronunciation ... Likewise rules to be observed by the natives of Scotland, Ireland, and London, for avoiding their respective peculiarities; and directions to foreigners for acquiring a knowledge of the use of this dictionary. The whole interspersed with observations, philological, critical, and grammatical|date=1791|publisher=London, G.G.J. and J. Robinson|others=New York Public Library|pages=viii}}</ref>

=== Influence in Britain ===
Despite the criticisms, "The influence of the ''Dictionary'' was sweeping. Johnson established both a methodology for how dictionaries should be put together and a paradigm for how entries should be presented. Anyone who sought to create a dictionary, post-Johnson, did so in his shadow."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;220</ref> "In his history of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', [[Simon Winchester]] asserts of its eighteenth-century predecessor that 'by the end of the century every educated household had, or had access to, the great book. So firmly established did it swiftly become that any request for "The Dictionary" would bring forth Johnson and none other.' 'One asked for The Dictionary,' writes Winchester, 'much as one might demand The Bible.'"<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;212</ref> One of the first editors of the ''[[OED]]'', [[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]], acknowledged that many of Johnson's explanations were adopted without change, for 'When his definitions are correct, and his arrangement judicious, it seems to be expedient to follow him.' ... In the end the ''[[OED]]'' reproduced around 1,700 of Johnson's definitions, marking them simply 'J.'."<ref>Hitchings 2005, pp.&nbsp;227–8</ref>

=== Reputation abroad ===
Johnson's influence was not confined to Britain and English: "The president of the Florentine Accademia declared that the ''Dictionary'' would be 'a perpetual Monument of Fame to the Author, an Honour to his own Country in particular, and a general Benefit to the Republic of Letters'. This was no empty commendation. Johnson's work served as a model for lexicographers abroad. It is no surprise that his friend [[Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti|Giuseppe Baretti]] chose to make the ''Dictionary'' the model for his Italian—English dictionary of 1760, and for his Spanish dictionary nearly two decades later.<ref>''A DICTIONARY, Spanish and English, and English and Spanish, . . ''</ref> But there are numerous examples of influence beyond Johnson's own circle. His work was translated into French and German."<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;223</ref> And "In 1777, when Ferdinando Bottarelli published a pocket dictionary of Italian, French and English (the three languages side by side), his authorities for the French and Italian words were the works of the French and Italian academies: for the English he used Johnson."<ref name=autogenerated1>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;224</ref>

=== Influence in America ===
The ''Dictionary'' was exported to America. "The American adoption of the ''Dictionary'' was a momentous event not just in its history, but in the history of lexicography. For Americans in the second half of the eighteenth century, Johnson was the seminal authority on language, and the subsequent development of American lexicography was coloured by his fame."<ref name=autogenerated1 /> For American lexicographers the ''Dictionary'' was impossible to ignore: "America's two great nineteenth-century lexicographers, [[Noah Webster]] and [[Joseph Emerson Worcester]], argued fiercely over Johnson's legacy ... In 1789 [Webster] declared that 'Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be ''our'' standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.'"<ref>Hitchings 2005, p.&nbsp;225</ref> "Where Webster found fault with Johnson, Joseph Worcester saluted him ... In 1846 he completed his ''[[Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language]]''. He defended Johnson's work, arguing that 'from the time of its publication, [it] has been, far more than any other, regarded as the standard for the language'."<ref>Hitchings 2005, pp.&nbsp;226–7</ref> Notwithstanding the evolution of lexicography in America, "The ''Dictionary'' has also played its part in the law, especially in the United States. Legislators are much occupied with ascertaining 'first meanings', with trying to secure the literal sense of their predecessors' legislation ... Often it is a matter of historicizing language: to understand a law, you need to understand what its terminology meant to its original architects ... as long as [[United States Constitution|the American Constitution]] remains intact, Johnson's ''Dictionary'' will have a role to play in [[Law of the United States|American law]]."<ref>Hitchings 2005, pp.&nbsp;229–31</ref>

== Folio and abridged editions ==
[[File:Johnson Folio and Abridged dictionaries.JPG|thumb|Samuel Johnson's ''Folio'' and ''Abridged Dictionaries'' together]]
[[File:Close up Samuel Johnson Folio and Abridged dictionaries – letter M.JPG|thumb|Close up of pages for M entries in the ''Folio'' and ''Abridged Dictionaries'' of 1755 and 1756 by Samuel Johnson]]

Johnson's dictionary came out in two forms.

The first was the 1755 ''Folio'' edition, which came in two large volumes on 4 April. The folio edition also features full literary quotes by those authors that Johnson quoted, such as Dryden and Shakespeare. It was followed a few weeks later by a second edition published in 165 weekly parts. The third edition was published in 1765, but it was the fourth, which came out in 1773 which included significant revisions by Johnson of the original work.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Crystal|first1=David|title=Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English Language: An Anthology|date=2005|publisher=Penguin Books|location=London|isbn=978-0-14-144157-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780141441573/page/ xxviii]|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780141441573/page/}}</ref>

The ''Abridged'' edition came out in 1756 in two [[octavo]] volumes with entries, "abstracted from the folio edition by the author",<ref>{{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=Samuel|title=Dictionary of the English Language Abstracted from the Folio Edition|date=1807|publisher=J. Johnson et al|location=London|page=Title Page|edition=12th}}</ref> laid out as two columns per page. The abridged version did not feature the literary quotes, just the author quoted. This made it cheaper to produce and buy. It sold over a thousand copies a year for the next 30 years bringing "The Dictionary" to the reach of every literate home.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lynch|first1=Jack|title=Samuel Johnson's Dictionary|date=2004|publisher=Atlantic Books|location=London|isbn=1-84354-296-X|page=17}}</ref>

== Replica editions ==
Johnson's ''Dictionary'' has been available in replica editions for some years. The entire first ''Folio'' editions of 1755 1st edition and 1773 4th edition are available on ''Johnson's Dictionary Online'', a project funded by the [[National Endowment for the Humanities]] and created by a team of scholars at the [[University of Central Florida]]. This version is the first fully searchable online edition.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/ |title=A Dictionary of the English Language: A Digital Edition of the 1755 Classic by Samuel Johnson|access-date=21 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Frequently Asked Questions – Johnson's Dictionary Online |url=https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/blog/frequently-asked-questions/ |access-date=2025-10-17 |language=en-US |quote=the 1st folio edition [1755] has been the most accessible … the 4th edition [1773] … so thoroughly revised that any project of this kind would be incomplete without it.}}</ref>

The Preface to the ''Dictionary'' is available on [[Project Gutenberg]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5430 |title=The Preface on Project Gutenberg |via=Project Gutenberg|date=1 April 2004 |access-date=15 April 2009}}</ref> In addition, scans of several editions can be found at the [[Internet Archive]]:

* 1755 1st edition: [https://archive.org/details/b30451541_0001/ Volume 1 (A–K)], [https://archive.org/details/b30451541_0002/ Volume 2 (L–Z)]
* 1768 3rd abridged edition: [https://archive.org/details/adictionaryengl00johngoog/ Single volume (A–Z)]
* 1785 6th edition: [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofengl01johnuoft/ Volume 1 (A–K)], [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofengl02johnuoft/ Volume 2 (L–Z)]
* 1799 8th edition: [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofeng01john/ Volume 1 (A–K)], [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofeng02john/ Volume 2 (L–Z)]

== In popular culture ==
The compilation of Johnson's ''Dictionary'' was the main plot-line for an [[Ink and Incapability|episode]] of ''[[Blackadder the Third]]'' where Edmund Blackadder ([[Rowan Atkinson]]), after confounding the scholar with a barrage of fabricated nonexistent words, tries to conceal the destruction of the dictionary's manuscript. Johnson had given his only manuscript to the Prince and it was presumably destroyed by Blackadder's apprentice [[wikt:dogsbody|dogsbody]] Baldrick. The manuscript is later found intact, only for Johnson to discover he had forgotten to include the word "sausage". The episode ends with Baldrick throwing the dictionary into the fire.

"Dr. Johnson's Great Dictionary" appears as a plot device in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes film, ''[[The Pearl of Death]]'', starring [[Basil Rathbone]] and [[Nigel Bruce]].<ref>{{Cite AV media| publisher = Universal Pictures| people = Neill, Roy William (director)| type = Motion picture| title = The Pearl of Death| date = 1944-08-01| time = 36 minutes |quote = I think I found something that he'll appreciate. It's ''Dr. Johnson's Great Dictionary'', an early folio.}}</ref>

At the end of Chapter 1 of [[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]] by [[William Makepeace Thackeray]] Becky Sharp disdainfully throws a copy of Johnson's ''Dictionary'' out the window.

In Melville's ''Moby Dick'', the narrator mentions using Johnson's dictionary to aid him in his leviathanic undertaking: "Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me." (Chapter 104, The Fossil Whale)

== Notes ==
{{Reflist}}

== References ==
* {{cite book|last1=Clifford|first1=James Lowry|title=Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson's Middle Years|date=1979|publisher=McGraw-Hill|location=New York}}
* Collins, H. P. (1974) "The Birth of the Dictionary." ''History Today'' (March 1974), Vol. 24 Issue 3, pp 197–203 online.
* {{Cite book |last=Hitchings |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Hitchings |title=Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book That Defined the World |publisher=John Murray |location=London |year=2005 |isbn=0-7195-6631-2}}
** US edition: {{Cite book |last=Hitchings |first=Henry |title=Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |location=New York |year=2005 |isbn=0-374-11302-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/definingworldext00hitc }}
* {{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=Samuel|editor1-last=Chapman|editor1-first=R. W.|title=The Letters of Samuel Johnson|date=1952|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford}}
* {{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=Samuel|editor1-last=Lynch|editor1-first=Jack|title=Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English Language|date=2002|publisher=Levenger Press|location=Delray Beach, Florida}}
* {{cite book|last1=Lane|first1=Margaret|title=Samuel Johnson and his World|url=https://archive.org/details/samueljohnsonhis0000lane|url-access=registration|date=1975|publisher=Harper & Row|location=New York|isbn=9780060124960 }}
* {{cite book|last1=Reddick|first1=Allen|title=The Making of Johnson's Dictionary 1746–1773|date=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge}}
* {{cite book|last1=Sledd|first1=James H.|last2=Kolb|first2=Gwin J.|title=Dr. Johnson's Dictionary: Essays in the biography of a book|date=1955|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago}}
* {{cite book|last1=Wain|first1=John|title=Samuel Johnson|date=1976|publisher=McGraw-Hill|location=New York}}

== External links ==
*[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/general.07677.1 Johnson's ''Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language'' (1747)] at the Library of Congress.
*Johnson's ''Dictionary'', first folio edition, 1755 : [http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=19407 Volume I] [http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=19404 Volume II] at the Pomeranian Digital Library.
::[https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language/XP1cAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 Volume I] and [https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language/mf1cAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover Volume II] at [[Google Books]].
*Johnson's ''Dictionary'', sixth folio edition, 1785 : [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofengl01johnuoft Volume 1] and [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofengl02johnuoft Volume 2] at the Internet Archive.
* {{librivox book |dtitle=Plan and Preface of ''A Dictionary of the English Language'' | stitle=Dictionary of English | author=Samuel Johnson}}
*Web site : [https://www.sjdictionarysources.org/ ''Samuel Johnson Dictionary Sources'', an extensive examination of the sources of quotations in Johnson's ''Dictionary''.]
*Web site : [http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com Johnson's Dictionary Online, a searchable version of the 1st (1755) folio edition of Johnson's ''Dictionary'']
*Web site : [http://www.whichenglish.com/Johnsons-Dictionary/1755-Letter-A.html HTML version of the 1756 ''abridged'' edition of Johnson's ''Dictionary'' (partial OCR)]
*Article : [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/apr/02/classics.wordsandlanguage ''Words count''] from ''The Guardian'', April 2005.
*Web page : [https://web.archive.org/web/20080309181613/http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/b_history.html ''A Brief History of English Lexicography'']; an HTML table.

{{Samuel Johnson|state=expanded}}
{{Dictionaries of English}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dictionary Of The English Language, A}}
[[Category:1755 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:1755 in England]]
[[Category:Books by Samuel Johnson]]
[[Category:British non-fiction literature]]
[[Category:English dictionaries]]