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Century Dictionary
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== History == The ''Century Dictionary'' is based on ''[[The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language]]'', edited by Rev. [[John Ogilvie (lexicographer)|John Ogilvie]] (1797β1867) and published by [[Blackie and Son Limited|W. G. Blackie and Co]]. of Scotland, 1847β1850, which in turn is an expansion of the 1841 second edition of [[Noah Webster]]'s [[Webster's Dictionary|''American Dictionary'']].<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=20588|title=Ogilvie, John|first=John D.|last=Haigh}}</ref> In 1882 [[The Century Company]] of New York bought the American rights to ''The Imperial Dictionary'' from Blackie and Son.{{sfn|Tichenor|2005|p=90}} The first edition of the ''Century Dictionary'' was published from 1889 to 1891 by The Century Company,{{sfn|Bailey|1996|p=9}} and was described as "six volumes in twenty four". The first edition runs to 7,046 pages and features some 10,000 wood-engraved illustrations. It was edited by Sanskrit scholar and linguist [[William Dwight Whitney]], with [[Benjamin Eli Smith]]'s assistance.{{sfn|Bailey|1996|p=6}} [[Image:CenturyDictionaryVolumes.jpg|left|thumb|200px| [[Meredith Publishing Company]]'s 1963 edition of ''The New Century Dictionary''. Volume One: [[A]]β[[pocket veto]] and Volume Two: [[wikt:pockmark|pock-mark]]β[[zymurgy]] & Supplements]] In 1895 a 10-volume edition was published, with the first eight volumes containing the dictionary proper, and the last two containing a [[biographical dictionary]] and a [[world atlas]]. Editions in either the 10 or 8 volume format were published in 1899, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904. In 1901 the title and subtitle changed slightly from ''The Century Dictionary; an encyclopedic lexicon of the English language'' to ''The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia; a work of universal reference in all departments of knowledge, with a new atlas of the world.'' Further editions were published in 1906, 1909 and 1911, this time in 12 volumes each.<ref>S. Padraig Walsh ''Anglo-American General Encyclopedias 1704β1967'' New York: R. R. Baker and Company, 1968 pp. 20β1</ref> 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).{{sfn|Bailey|1996|p=7}} 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 8,500 pages in a very thin paper. The now much coveted [[India paper]] edition also appeared around this time, usually in five 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 Dictionary|Webster's New International]]'' or ''[[Funk and Wagnalls|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 [[etymology|etymologies]], [[Greek language|Greek]] words were not [[transliteration|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 [[bookbinding|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, a Ph.D. dissertation on "American Dictionaries" concluded its 14-page chapter on the ''Century Dictionary'' with the assessment that the work "far surpasses anything in American lexicography".<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = J.H. Furst| last = Steger| first = Stewart Archer| title = American Dictionaries| location = Baltimore| access-date = 2020-06-15| date = 1913| url = https://archive.org/details/americandictiona00stegrich| page=96}}</ref>
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