Robert K. Barnhart was an American

United States

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

 lexicographer and editor of various specialized dictionaries. He was co-editor, with his father 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....

, on some editions of the Thorndike-Barnhart dictionaries and The World Book Dictionary

World Book Dictionary

The World Book Dictionary is a two volume English dictionary published as a supplement to the World Book Encyclopedia. It was originally published in 1963 under the editorship of Clarence Barnhart, who wrote definitions for the Thorndike-Barnhart graded dictionary series for children, based on the...

. With his father and Sol Steinmetz

Sol Steinmetz

Sol Steinmetz was a Hungarian American linguistics and lexicography expert who wrote extensively about etymologies, definitions and uncovered earliest recorded usages of words in English and Yiddish...

, he edited the three volumes of The Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1973,1980, 1990).

He also edited The Hammond Barnhart Dictionary of Science (1986), also published as The American Heritage Dictionary of Science (1988). Perhaps his major work is The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (1988), one of the most comprehensive volumes of its kind. He edited an abridgement, The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology (1995). His Barnhart Abbreviations Dictionary (1995) includes a reverse list of what the abbreviations stand for.

Robert's brother David K. Barnhart

David Barnhart

David K. Barnhart is an American lexicographer who specializes in new words. He began his career helping his father, Clarence Barnhart, edit the Thorndike-Barnhart dictionary series....

is also a lexicographer.