Century Dictionary

First alphabetical page of The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

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 (originally issued in 24 fascicles) in 7,046 pages with some 10,000 wood-engraved illustrations. It was edited by Sanskrit scholar and linguist William Dwight Whitney, with Benjamin Eli Smith's assistance. It was a great expansion of the smaller Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, which in turn had been based on the 1841 edition of Noah Webster's American Dictionary.

Meredith Publishing Company's 1963 edition of The New Century Dictionary. Volume One: A—pocket veto and Volume Two: pock-mark—zymurgy & Supplements

After Whitney's death in 1894, supplementary volumes were published under Smith's supervision, including The Century Cyclopedia of Names (1894) and The Century Atlas (1897). A two-volume Supplement of new vocabulary, published in 1909, completed the dictionary. A reformatted edition, The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, was published in 1911 in twelve quarto volumes: ten of vocabulary, plus the volume of names and the atlas. This set went through several printings, the last in 1914. The same year, the ten vocabulary volumes were published as one giant volume, about 8500 pages in a very thin paper. The now much coveted India paper edition also appeared around this time, usually in 5 double volumes (rarely, in 10 single volumes) plus one additional for the Cyclopedia.

The completed dictionary contained over 500,000 entries, more than Webster's New International or Funk and Wagnalls New Standard, the largest other dictionaries of the period. Each form of a word was treated separately, and liberal numbers of quotations and additional information were included to support the definitions. In its etymologies, Greek words were not transliterated.

Although no revised edition of the dictionary was ever again published, an abridged edition with new words and other features, The New Century Dictionary (edited by H.G. Emery and K.G. Brewster; revision editor, Catherine B. Avery,) was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts of New York in 1927, and reprinted in various forms for over thirty-five years. The New Century became the basis for the American College Dictionary, the first Random House Dictionary, in 1947. The three volume New Century Cyclopedia of Names, an expansion of the 1894 volume, was published in 1954, edited by Clarence Barnhart.

The Century Dictionary was admired for the quality of its entries, the craftsmanship in its design, typography, and binding, and its excellent illustrations. It has been used as an information source for the makers of many later dictionaries, including editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, who cited it over 2,000 times in the first edition. In 1913, Stewart Archer Steger from the University of Virginia published his Ph.D. dissertation "American Dictionaries" and devoted a 14-page Chapter VI to Century Dictionary. He concluded the chapter with these words: "Altogether, The Century Dictionary far surpasses anything in American lexicography".

Digitization efforts

The works are out of copyright, and efforts have been made to digitize the volumes.

24-part set

1889–91

Volume	Part	Coverage	Digitized editions
Vol 1.	1	A – Appet.	1889–91
	2	Appet. – Bice	1889–91
	3	Bice – Barboy	1889–91
	4	Carboy – Cono.	1889–91
Vol 2.	5	Cono. – Deflect	1889–91, 1889–91
	6	Deflect – Drool	1889–91
	7	Droop – Expirant	1889–91
	8	Expirant – Fz	1889–91
Vol 3.	9	G – Halve	1889–91, 1889–91, 1889–91
	10	Halve – Iguvine	1889–91, 1889–91
	11	Ihleite – Juno	1889–91
	12	Juno – Lyverey	1889–91
Vol 4.	13	M – Mormon	1889–91, 1889–91, 1889–91
	14	Mormon – Optic	1889–91
	15	Optic – Pilar	1889–91
	16	Pilar – Pyx-veil	1889–91
Vol 5.	17	Q – Ring	1889–91
	18	Ring – Sea-gull	1889–91
	19	Sea-gull – Smash	1889–91
	20	Smash – Stro.	1889–91
Vol 6.	21	Stru. – Term	1889–91 1889–91
	22	Term – Trust	1889–91
	23	Trust – Vysar	1889–91
	24	W – Z	1889–91

Ten volume set

Volume	Coverage	Editions digitized
Vol 1	A. B. Celt	1895, 1897, 1901, 1904, 1906
Vol 2	Celt. – Drool	1895, 1897, 1901, 1901, 1904, 1904, 1906
Vol 3	Droop. E. F. G.	1895, 1897, 1897, 1904
Vol 4	H. I. J. K. L.	1895, 1897, 1901, 1901, 1904, 1904
Vol 5	M. N. O. Phar.	1895, 1897, 1901, 1904
Vol 6	Phar. Q. R. Salse.	1895, 1897, 1901, 1901, 1904
Vol 7	Salsi. – Tech.	1895, 1897, 1901, 1901, 1904, 1904
Vol 8	Tech. U. V. W. X. Y. Z	1895, 1901, 1901, 1904, 1907
Vol 9	Proper Names	1897, 1904 Separately: 1894, 1895 (Vol 1), 1895 (Vol 1), 1895 (Vol 2), 1914, 1918, 1954 (New Century, Vol 1)
Vol 10	Atlas	1897, 1901
Vol 11	Dictionary Supplement A–L	1909, 1910, 1910, 1910
Vol 12	Dictionary Supplement M–Z	1910

Twelve volume set

1911, University of Michigan and Cornell University

Sources

Adams, James Truslow. Dictionary of American History. New York: Scribner, 1940.
Bailey, Richard, et al. "Forum: Centennial Celebration of The Century Dictionary". Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 17 (1996): 1–125.

External links

The complete Century Dictionary is in image form, where it can be searched by the word or viewed by the page in its original form, with zoom-in option. It is also available in full-text form at Wordnik. A downloadable offline version for Babylon client is here.
The Century Dictionary, and Supplement online with easy word search

Dictionaries of English

Old and Middle English	An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Dict. of Old English Middle English Dictionary

Historic	Edward Phillips' (1658) John Kersey's (1702) Nathan Bailey's (1721) Samuel Johnson's (1755) Noah Webster's (1828) Century (1889–91)

American English	American Heritage Dict. of American English Dict. of American Regional English Imperial Dictionary New Oxford American Oxford American Random House Webster's Webster's New World Webster's Third New International World Book Dictionary

British English	Chambers Collins Oxford English, Concise Oxford English, Shorter Oxford English, Historical Thesaurus, Oxford Dictionary of English Penguin

Canadian English	List of Canadian English dictionaries

Australian English	Australian National Australian Oxford Macquarie

Online	Wiktionary Collaborative International Dict. of English OmegaWiki Urban Dictionary Wordnik

Learners / ESL	Cambridge Advanced Learner's Collins COBUILD Advanced Longman Dict. of Contemporary English Macmillan English Dict. for Advanced Learners Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Oxford Advanced Learner's

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