More than sixty years ago, a pioneering team at the World Publishing Company in Cleveland, Ohio, set out to create a brand new — and distinctly American — dictionary. In contrast to standard dictionaries of its day, which were stiffly formal and didactic, this new work would be an inviting, honest guide reflecting how language is actually used.
Recording Real People
The editors sought to record the relaxed pronunciations of ordinary conversation, rather than those of artificial "platform speech" traditionally held as a model. The most important innovation came in the style of the definitions, which relied on everyday 20th-century language to convey meaning with sureness, clarity, and ease.
In September 1951, after nearly a decade of painstaking labor, Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language was born. Published in two volumes, this groundbreaking work was hailed by Library Journal as a "dictionary that marks a great advance in American lexicography." The first single-volume college edition followed in 1953 — covering 140,000 entries within 1,702 pages.
Born in the USA
In 1970, a completely revised Second College Edition was published. It was the first dictionary to identify all Americanisms — terms and usages conceived in the United States. It was also the first to give etymologies of American place names. Widely praised, Webster’s New World College Dictionary soon became the sanctioned reference work and arbiter of style for the Associated Press, United Press International, and The New York Times. It was also chosen by the American Printing House for the Blind, in conjunction with the Library of Congress, as the first dictionary of its scope to be embossed in Braille in its entirety — resulting in 72 large volumes.
Under the direction of its editors in chief — David B. Guralnik (1948 to 1985), Victoria Neufeldt (1986 to 1992), and currently Michael Agnes — Webster’s New World College Dictionary has continued to evolve with America’s ever-changing language. Its staff conducts a daily language-monitoring program, collecting new words from every conceivable source — even graffiti. The landmark dictionary has also inspired a whole family of reference works, including Webster’s New World Children’s Dictionary, Webster’s New World Roget’s A–Z Thesaurus, and Webster’s New World Pocket Dictionary among its popular members.
Now in its Fourth Edition, WEBSTER’S NEW WORLD COLLEGE DICTIONARY led the new millennium with a special 50th Anniversary Revision, for which the editors took 150 new words off "the word watch list" and added them to the dictionary’s word stock.
With more than 8 million copies sold since its introduction, this premier word source now boasts 163,000 entries within 1,669 pages, over 12,000 Americanisms, specially-commissioned fonts for better readability, and more than 850 illustrations, complete with a four-color world atlas. Keeping up with the talk of the times, this truly golden dictionary remains the definitive, and uniquely dynamic, guide to American English.
Webster’s New World: We Define Your World.
