A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles (DAE) is a dictionary

Dictionary

A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...

 of terms appearing in English in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 that was published in four volumes from 1938 to 1944 by the University of Chicago Press

University of Chicago Press

The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...

. Intended to pick up where the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

left off, it covers American English words and phrases in use from the first English settlements up to the start of the 20th century.

History

The work was begun in 1925 by William A. Craigie. The first volume appeared in 1936 under the editorship of Craigie and James R. Hulbert, a professor of English at the University of Chicago. The four volume edition was completed with the help of George Watson and Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read was an American etymologist and lexicographer, best known for his studies into the words "okay" and "fuck."...

.

The work was one of the sources for the Dictionary of Americanisms, c. 1952, prepared under the direction of Mitford Mathews. A similar, but unrelated modern work, the Dictionary of American Regional English

Dictionary of American Regional English

The Dictionary of American Regional English is a record of American English as spoken in the United States, from its beginning up to the present...

, is presently being compiled to show dialect variation.

Volumes

I. A-Corn patch.

II. Corn pit-Honk.

III. Honk-Record.

IV. Recorder-Zu-zu, Bibliography (p. 2529-2552)