Abstract
WEBSTER'S Dictionary is so well known on both sides of the Atlantic that it is unnecessary to do much more than note the appearance of the present edition. The work was published originally in 1828, after which it was steadily improved in successive issues. It has now been revised so thoroughly, and with the aid of so many competent scholars, that for popular use it can hardly fail to maintain the ground it has already won. Much prominence is given to “the definitions and illustrations of scientific, technological, and zoological terms,” and in the preface to the English edition it is stated that no pains have been spared to make this part of the book “as perfect as possible in both text and illustration.” The definitions in particular branches of science have been revised by such men as Prof. H. A. Newton and Prof. E. S. Dana—names which are a sufficient guarantee for the way in which the task has been accomplished. In the department of etymology, Prof. E. S. Sheldon, of Harvard University, has carefully dealt with the results presented in the last edition, bringing them into accord with the philological ideas of the present day. The pictorial illustrations are numerous, and well adapted to the purposes for which they are inserted.
Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language.
Revised and Enlarged under the Supervision of Noah Porter. (London: George Bell and Sons. Springfield, Mass. U.S.A.: G. and C. Merriam and Co.)
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Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language. Nature 44, 102 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/044102b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/044102b0