OED on CD-ROM



The history of the Oxford English Dictionary



The First Edition 1857 - 19286


If there is any truth in the old Greek maxim that a large book is a great evil, English
dictionaries have been steadily growing worse ever since their inception nearly four
centuries ago. To set Cawdrey's slim small volume of 1604 beside the completed Oxford
English Dictionary is like placing the original acorn beside the oak that has grown out
of it.

The immensity of this growth is explained by the successive introduction of three new
principles in lexicography. The earlier dictionary-makers followed in the line of the
old glossaries, and directed their attention to such words as were likely to be
unfamiliar to the ordinary person. The widening of this narrow range during the
seventeenth century is made obvious by the steady increase in size through Bullokar,
Cockeram, Blount, and Phillips, until in the eighteenth the principle of general
inclusion was practically accepted by Kersey and Bailey. The next stage is marked by
Johnson's systematic use of quotations to illustrate and justify the definitions, the
many omissions still existing in the vocabulary being partly filled by later
supplementary works on the same lines. When to all this was superadded the principle of
historical illustration, introduced by Richardson, it became inevitable that any
adequate dictionary of English must be one of the larger books of the world.

It is remarkable that Richardson's dictionary, perhaps through certain defects in his
method, did not at once attract the attention it deserved. From the appearance of the
first instalment in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana in 1819 to the full acceptance of
the historical principle by the Philological Society almost forty years had passed, and
the separate publication of his dictionary in 1836-7 did not affect to any appreciable
extent the work of those lexicographers who followed in the wake of Johnson or Webster.
Even his wealth of quotations remained unutilized, although they formed a natural
storehouse for any who cared to search in it and bring forth ?treasures new and old? to
add to those already available in the works of Johnson and his successors.

That a forward step was made towards the end of these forty years was due to the action
taken by the Philological Society in the summer of 1857, apparently as the result of a
suggestion made by F. J. Furnivall to Dean Trench in May. At the meeting held on 18 June
?the appointment of Messrs. Herbert Coleridge and Furnivall and Dean Trench by the
Council, as a committee to collect unregistered words in English, was announced, ant
that they would report to the next Meeting of the Society in November?. At this stage
the idea was to prepare and publish a volume supplementary to the later editions of
Johnson, or to Richardson, and containing all words omitted in either of these
dictionaries.

The committee did not report in November, but on the fifth of that month one of its
members, Dean Trench, read the first part of a paper ?On some Deficiencies in our
English Dictionaries?, while the report was postponed till 3 December. This interval
allowed the second part of the paper to be read on 19 November, when the Society showed
its appreciation by resolving ?That The Dean of Westminster be requested to publish his
interesting and valuable Paper. To this request he kindly acceded.? Publication followed
almost immediately, the first edition bearing the date 1857 and the title ?On some
Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, being the substance of two papers read before
the Philological Society, Nov. 5 and Nov. 19, 1857. By Richard Chenevix Trench, D. D.,
Dean of Westminster.?

Even at this day, after the lapse of a hundred and fifty years and the advance in
English studies which has taken place during that time, Dean Trench's paper retains its
value as a statement of what an English dictionary ought to be. No one who reads it can
fail to see how clearly he anticipated the lines on which the Society's dictionary was
ultimately compiled - all of them, indeed, a necessary result from the historical
principle which he laid down as the only sound basis for the work.

At the meeting of 3 December 1857, a report from the ?Unregistered Words Committee was
read by the Secretary to that Committee, Mr. H. Coleridge?. This was followed by the
resolution ?That for the present this Report be received and laid on the table. This
resolution was passed in consequence of a statement that a larger scheme, for a
completely new English Dictionary, might shortly be submitted to the Society.? The
Dean's paper had clearly convinced the Society of the inadequacy of its proposals, and
had shown that nothing short of a ?completely new? work would suffice. In this natural
way arose the epithet New which appeared on the title-page of the Dictionary when the
time for publication arrived.

The Society lost no time in following up the new idea, little suspecting the magnitude
of the task which lay before it, and the many years that would elapse before it would be
completed, or even properly begun. On 7 January 1858, ?the following resolutions were
passed relating to the undertaking of a New English Dictionary.

1. That instead of the Supplement to the Standard English Dictionaries now in course
   of preparation by the order of the Society, a New Dictionary of the English Language
   be prepared under the Authority of the Philological Society.
2. That the work be placed in the hands of two Committees, the one, Literary and
   Historical, consisting of The very Rev. The Dean of Westminster, F. J. Furnivall,
   Esq., and Herbert Coleridge, Esq. (Secretary), the other, Etymological, consisting of
   Hensleigh Wedgewood, Esq., and Prof. Malden, and that in questions of doubt as to the
   form which any article shall assume, the decision of the Literary and Historical
   Committee shall be final.
3. That the Society desires to express its thanks to the contributors who have kindly
   given their assistance to its Unregistered Words Committee, and to invite their
   assistance, and that of fresh volunteers, in the new undertaking.
4. That Messrs. Furnivall and Coleridge be empowered to enter into such conditional
   agreement with Messrs. Nutt of London and Asher of Berlin, or such other Publishers
   as they think fit, to publish the Dictionary on such terms as they think fit.
5. That the Subscriptions of all Members who have joined or shall join the Society
   through the Unregistered Words Committee or the New Dictionary Committee, shall be
   placed, so far as required, at the disposal of the Committees now appointed, to
   defray their printing and other expenses.
6. That the Philological Society will afford every assistance in its power to enable
   its Committees to make a Dictionary worthy of the English Language.?

As is indicated in the third of these resolutions, the Unregistered Words Committee had
been remarkably successful, during its brief existence, in arousing interest in the
Society's undertaking, and in enlisting willing helpers to aid in carrying it out.
Towards the close of his paper as printed, Dean Trench had been able to make an
encouraging statement on this head. ?Let me mention here that seventy-six volunteers
have already come forward, claiming their shares in the task. A hundred and twenty-one
works of English authors, in most cases the whole works of each author, have been taken
in hand by them; and I may add that thirty-one contributions have already been sent in.?
In this way began the system of voluntary readers, without whose help the material for
the Society's dictionary could never have been collected at all, except at a prohibitive
cost of time and money.

At the meeting on 21 January 1858, ?Mr. Furnivall read a circular which the New
Dictionary Committee proposed to issue, stating the plan of the Dictionary and asking
for help in carrying it out?. It does not appear whether the circular was actually
issued, and further notices in the Transactions for that year are brief and unimportant.
A glimpse of the progress that was being made is afforded by a passage in Coleridge's
letter to Dean Trench (30 May 1860), which was printed in the second edition of the
Dean's paper. ?More than a year passed away in combating various difficulties, and it
was not till August 1858, that we felt ourselves in a position to announce the plan of a
New Dictionary as a certainty, and to invite contributors to furnish us with
assistance.? Negotiations with publishers had been carried on during the year, first
with John Murray, and then with David Nutt; finally on 4 November, Furnivall ?stated
that Messrs. Trübner & Co. had agreed to publish the Society's New English Dictionary?.
The young co-workers, for both Furnivall and Coleridge were still in early manhood, had
not only all the optimism of youth, but were embarking on an uncharted sea, quite
unwitting of the long course which had to be sailed before the farther shore could even
come into sight.

By 1859 the Committee was able to publish full details of the undertaking in the form of
a ?Proposal for the Publication of a New English Dictionary by the Philological
Society?. This document is a proof of the thoroughness and sound judgement with which
the whole question had been considered. Opening with a review of the steps by which the
idea of a ?new? dictionary had been reached, the authors of the Proposal went on to lay
down certain principles as a basis for the work, of which the two most important are the
first and fourth, viz.

I. The first requirement of every lexicon is that is should contain every word occurring
in the literature of the language it professes to illustrate.
IV. In the treatment of individual words the historical principle will be uniformly
adopted.

Other contents of the Proposal are ?Rules and Directions for Collectors? as agreed upon
by the Literary, Historical, and Etymological Committees, and ?Mechanical and Practical
Regulations?. These are 1. ?A list of the printed literature of England belonging to the
period 1250-1526,? with the added note, ?Those works marked with an asterisk are already
undertaken?. 2. ?A list of works of the Second Period (1526-1674) already undertaken?.
3. A similar list of ?works of the Third Period (1674-1858) already undertaken?. This
division of the literature into three periods, which originated with Coleridge and was
maintained for some time as a basis of collecting, has a real foundation in fact.
Although the dates 1526 and 1674 were chosen because the former was that of the first
printed English New Testament, and the latter the year of Milton's death, they
correspond very closely with significant epochs in the development of the English
vocabulary. If arrived at by accident, they at the same time show a sound instinct for
detecting the periods of essential change.

The volunteers were also beginning to play their part, and to provide the Committee with
material to work upon. ?In April 1859 a paper containing queries respecting etymologies
and several difficult passages from Early English books was circulated among members of
the Society and contributors to the Dictionary, and conjectures in answer were invited
... So much of the results of this appeal as the Dictionary Committee consider
sufficiently valuable, and sufficiently certain to be worth printing? was reported to
the Society by Coleridge in a paper entitled ?Hints towards the explanation of some hard
words and passages in English writers?. On 10 November of the same year, Coleridge, now
formally appointed as editor, presented a ?report on the Society?s proposed Dictionary?.

The following month saw another forward step, when on 8 December the Society resolved:

1. That a Committee be appointed to draw up a set of Rules for the guidance of the
   Editor of the Society's new English Dictionary.
2. That the Committee consist of:
   The Very Rev. The Dean of Westminster, Professor Key, F. J. Furnivall, Esq., Thomas
   Watts, Esq., F. Pulszky, Esq., Professor Goldstücker.
3. That the Committee be authorized to print the Rules drawn up by them, to circulate
   the printed Copies among all the Members of the Society, and to appoint one of the
   Society's nights of Meeting for a special discussion of the Rules by Members.

The Committee, or Coleridge himself on its behalf, set to work at once and prepared a
draft of the rules, which was discussed, enlarged, and modified, at meetings held in
December 1859 and January 1860, further considered and revised in April and May, and
finally printed with the title of ?Canones Lexicographici, or rules to be observed in
editing the New English Dictionary of the Philological Society?. Continued interest in
the work is also shown by a paper read on 10 May, ?Observations on the plan of the
Society's proposed new English Dictionary, by the Revd Derwent Coleridge?, and by the
appearance of a second edition of Dean Trench's two papers ?revised and enlarged. To
which is added a letter to the author from Herbert Coleridge, Esq., on the progress and
prospects of the Society's New English Dictionary.?

This letter is interesting as a survey of what had so far been accomplished, and closes
on a confident note. ?I believe that the scheme is now firmly established, and I
confidently expect ... that in about two years we shall be able to give our first number
to the world. Indeed, were it not for the dilatoriness of many contributors ... I should
not hesitate to name an earlier period.? Here also comes the first mention of
co-operation from the English-speaking nation on the other side of the Atlantic. ?The
Hon. G. P. Marsh of Burlington, Vermont, having kindly offered to act as Secretary in
America, I at once suggested that the Americans should make themselves responsible for
the whole of the eighteenth-century literature, which probably would have a less chance
of finding as many readers in England. This was agreed to, ... and contributors are, as
I understand, coming in, but no results of their labours have reached us yet.? The
suggestion was not a fortunate one, and was never seriously taken up.

By this time, on the basis of the material already sent in by contributors and of the
existing dictionaries, Coleridge was hard at work preparing word-lists to serve as a
guide in further collecting. The ?Third Period? was selected for this purpose, and by 14
February 1861, he was able to lay before the Society the first part of this ?Basis of
Comparison?, covering the letters A to D. The preliminary notice to this in its printed
form is signed by Coleridge, and its publication was unfortunately the last of his
valuable contributions to the progress of the work. On Thursday, 25 April, ?Mr.
Furnivall announced the death on the preceding Tuesday of Herbert Coleridge, Esq., the
Editor of the Society's New English Dictionary?. When the second part of the ?Basis of
Comparison? (E to L) appeared later in the year, the prefectory note, dated 25
September, and signed by Furnivall, opened with these words: ?Since the publication of
the First Part of this Basis, our proposed Dictionary has received a severe blow by the
death of its first Editor, the able and accomplished Herbert Coleridge. In its service
he caught the cold which resulted in his death. All through his illness he worked for it
whenever leisure and strength allowed; and his last attempt at work - two days before he
died - was to arrange some of its papers.?

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