From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Merriam-Webster, originally known as the
G. & C. Merriam Company of
Springfield, Massachusetts, is a
United States company that publishes reference books,
especially
dictionaries that are descendants of
Noah Webster's
An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
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Contents
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1
Origins
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2
Today
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3
Pronunciation guides
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4
External links
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Origins
In
1843, after Webster's death, George and Charles Merriam
secured publishing and revision rights to the
1840
edition of the dictionary. They published a modest revision in
1847, and a second update with illustrations in
1859.
In 1864, Merriam published a much expanded edition, largely
overhauling Noah Webster's work, yet retaining Webster's title,
"An American Dictionary." This began a series of revisions known
as "Unabridged," which became increasingly more "Merriam" than
"Webster."
With the edition of 1890, the dictionary was retitled,
"Webster's International." The vocabulary was vastly expanded in
"Webster's New International" editions of 1909 and 1934,
totaling over half a million words. Merriam overhauled the
dictionary again with the 1961 "Webster's Third New
International" under the direction of Philip B. Gove, making
changes which sparked public controversy. (For more details on
these dictionaries, see
Webster's Dictionary.)
The "Collegiate Dictionary" series was initiated in 1898.
Since the 1940s, the company has added many specialized
dictionaries, language aides, and other references to its
repertoire.
The G. & C. Merriam Company lost its right to
exclusive use of the name "Webster" after a series of lawsuits
placed it in public domain. Its name was changed to
Merriam-Webster Inc. with the publication of Webster's
Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary in
1983.
The company has been a subsidiary of
Encyclopๆdia Britannica Inc. since
1964.
Today
As of 2003, the company's two best known dictionaries are:
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Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged,
the most complete current non-specialist American dictionary
of English.
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Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh
Edition, the largest and most popular college dictionary,
which is available in CD-ROM format for use on personal
computers.
Merriam-Webster has also published dictionaries of synonyms,
English
usage, geography (Merriam-Webster's
Geographical Dictionary), biography, proper names,
medical terms, sports terms, slang, Spanish-English, and
numerous others. Non-dictionary publications include,
Collegiate Thesaurus, Secretarial Handbook, Manual
for Writers and Editors, Collegiate Encyclopedia,
Encyclopedia of Literature, Encyclopedia of World
Religions.
On February 14th, 2007 Merriam-Webster announced it was
working with mobile search and information provider
AskMeNow to launch a mobile dictionary and thesaurus service
enabling consumers to access definitions, spelling and synonyms
via text message. Services also include Merriam-Webster's Word
of the Day and Open Dictionary, a wiki service promising
subscribers the opportunity to create and submit their own new
words and definitions.
Pronunciation guides
The Merriam-Webster company once used a unique set of
phonetic symbols in their dictionaries which permitted persons
from various parts of the US to learn how to pronounce new words
as others who spoke in the same accent or dialect did. But
Unicode did not specify room for these characters in their
list. And to enable a variety of computer systems to access the
pronunciation, the on-line services of Merriam-Webster specify a
less-specific use of ASCII characters, which is not to be
confused with the former print fonts.
External links
Categories:
Companies based in Massachusetts |
Dictionaries |
Online dictionaries |
Springfield, Massachusetts
