Abstract
The century that followed the publication of Noah Webster’s Compendious Dictionary (1806) was characterized by an unprecedented period of innovation and achievement in American lexicography. It produced a stream of fine works of continually evolving scope, including the early Webster and Worcester dictionaries, the 1864 Webster’s Unabridged which served as James Murray’s “yardstick” during the composition of the New English Dictionary, the expanded Webster’s International Dictionary of 1890, and the recognizably modern Funk & Wagnalls’ Standard Dictionary of 1894. The Century Dictionary, based on Annandale’s expanded edition of the Imperial Dictionary, itself based an early edition of Webster’s, was the most ambitious lexicographical enterprise of them all.