Random House Dictionary of the English Language
Encyclopedia
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary is a large American 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...

, first published in 1966 as The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged.

The Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

 publishing company entered the reference book market after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. They acquired rights to the Century Dictionary
Century Dictionary
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia was one of the largest encyclopedic dictionaries of the English language. The first edition was published from 1889 to 1891 by The Century Company of New York, in six, eight, or ten volume versions in 7,046 pages with some 10,000 wood-engraved illustrations...

and the Dictionary of American English
Dictionary of American English
A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles is a dictionary of terms appearing in English in the United States that was published in four volumes from 1938 to 1944 by the University of Chicago Press...

, both out of print. Their first dictionary was Clarence Barnhart
Clarence Barnhart
Clarence Lewis Barnhart was an American lexicographer best known for writing the Thorndike-Barnhart series of graded dictionaries, which were based on word lists developed by psychological theorist Edward Thorndike....

's American College Dictionary
American College Dictionary
The American College Dictionary was the first Random House dictionary and was later expanded to create the Random House Dictionary of the English Language. First published in 1947, The American College Dictionary was edited by Clarence Barnhart based on the 1927 New Century Dictionary....

, published in 1947, and based primarily on The New Century Dictionary, an abridgement of the Century.

In the late 1950s, it was decided to publish an expansion of the American College Dictionary
American College Dictionary
The American College Dictionary was the first Random House dictionary and was later expanded to create the Random House Dictionary of the English Language. First published in 1947, The American College Dictionary was edited by Clarence Barnhart based on the 1927 New Century Dictionary....

, which had been modestly updated with each reprinting since its publication. Under editors Jess Stein and Laurence Urdang
Laurence Urdang
Laurence Urdang was a lexicographer, editor and author noted for first computerising the unabridged Random House Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1966. He was also the founding editor of Verbatim, a quarterly newsletter on language.Urdang was born in Manhattan and graduated from...

, they augmented the American College Dictionary with large numbers of entries in all fields, primarily proper names, and published it in 1966 as the first edition of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Unabridged Edition. It was the first dictionary to use computers in its compilation and typesetting
Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...

.

An expanded second edition, edited by Stuart Berg Flexner
Stuart Berg Flexner
Stuart Berg Flexner was a lexicographer, editor and author, noted for his books on the origins of American words and expressions, including I Hear America Talking and Listening to America; as co-editor of the Dictionary of American Slang' and as chief editor of the Random House Dictionary, Second...

, appeared in 1987, revised in 1993. This edition adopted the Merriam-Webster Collegiate innovation of adding dates for the entry of words into the language. Unlike the Collegiate, which cited the date of the first known citation, Random House indicated a range of dates. For example, where the Collegiate gave 1676, Random House might offer 1670-80.

Random House incorporated the name Webster's into the dictionary's title after an injunction won by Merriam Webster preventing its use on Random House's college edition was overturned on appeal. The name Random House Webster's is now used on many Random House publications.

Versions of the dictionary have been published under other names, including Webster's New Universal Dictionary (which was previously the name of an entirely different dictionary) and Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary.

See also

  • WordGenius
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