Noah Webster

Noah Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in West Hartford, Connecticut, and died on May 28, 1843, in New Haven.¹ The fourth of five children, he showed exceptional scholarly ability early on, and his father sacrificed much to give him the best education available.² He entered Yale in 1774, interrupted his studies to serve briefly in the American Revolution, graduated in 1778, then taught school, did clerical work, and studied law before being admitted to the bar in 1781.¹

The dictionary grew out of a very specific frustration. While teaching in Goshen, New York, in 1782, Webster grew dissatisfied with school texts that ignored American culture.¹ More broadly, he believed fervently in the developing cultural independence of the United States, a chief part of which was to be a distinctive American language with its own idiom, pronunciation, and style.³ Webster saw his American Dictionary as more than a convenient reference. He regarded its contributions to standardized language usage and spelling as integral to building a new nation.⁴

In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. The following year, he started working on an expanded and comprehensive dictionary, finally publishing it in 1828.⁵ The project was grueling. To research the origins of his own country's tongue, he learned 26 languages, including Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit.³ Several times Webster ran out of money, but he received financial support from statesman and jurist John Jay and other prominent Americans who wanted to see the book finished.⁴ He completed his dictionary during a year abroad in 1825, working in Paris and at the University of Cambridge.⁶

The finished work was substantial. His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before.⁵ On spelling, it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Webster, but he was influential in popularizing certain spellings in America rather than originating them. He chose already existing options such as "center," "color," and "check" on grounds of simplicity, analogy, or etymology.⁵ He also added words with no British equivalent: American terms like "skunk" and "squash" that were not yet in English dictionaries.⁷

The reception was rocky. The dictionary sold only 2,500 copies in America. Webster mortgaged his house and continued his work, compiling a second edition in two volumes that appeared in 1840. By the time he died in 1843, his dictionary was better known but not yet well accepted. Many educated Americans thought it too radical and too vulgar.⁸ After Webster's death, the rights were sold in 1847 to George and Charles Merriam, printers in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the dictionary became, through many revisions, the foundation of American lexicography.²