Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary traces its roots to a decision made in the late 1950s to build something vast. The goal was a dictionary with 315,000 entries, 2,256 pages, and 2,400 illustrations. It would be the first dictionary ever compiled and typeset using computers. The questions worth asking: how does a publishing house with no dictionary tradition build one of the largest in the American language? And what does it mean to steer, as its first editor put it, between the "lexicographer's Scylla and Charybdis"?
Random House entered the reference book market after World War II, starting not from nothing but from acquisition. The company acquired rights to the Century Dictionary and the Dictionary of American English, both out of print at the time. From that foundation came their first dictionary: the American College Dictionary, published in 1947. Clarence Barnhart edited it, drawing primarily on The New Century Dictionary, itself an abridgment of the Century. The American College Dictionary was reprinted multiple times with modest updates, laying the groundwork for what would eventually become a far more ambitious project.
Under editors Jess Stein and Laurence Urdang, the American College Dictionary was radically expanded in the late 1950s. The team augmented it with large numbers of entries across all fields, with particular emphasis on proper names. The corpus used to compile the dictionary contained 25,000,000 words, a massive dataset for the era. When The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition appeared in 1966, it was a landmark not just for its scale but for its method: it was the first dictionary to use computers in both its compilation and its typesetting.
Jess Stein used the preface to the 1966 edition to stake out the dictionary's editorial philosophy. On page vi, he wrote that the Random House Dictionary steers "a linguistically sound middle course" between two extremes: the authoritarian guide to "correct" English on one side, and a dictionary so free of comment that it offers the user no guidance at all. Stein described that second extreme as the "lexicographer's Scylla and Charybdis." The balance he described proved difficult to maintain in subsequent editions. The second edition, edited by Stuart Berg Flexner and published in 1987, was described as permissive by T. R. Reid in the Washington Post.
Stuart Berg Flexner's revised edition appeared in 1987 and was revised again in 1993. One of its notable editorial choices was the adoption of a practice borrowed from Merriam-Webster Collegiate: adding dates showing when words entered the language. The two dictionaries handled those dates differently. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate cited the first known recorded use, giving a single year like 1676. Random House instead offered a range, noting for the same word something like 1670-80. That approach acknowledged uncertainty without pretending to precision the evidence didn't support.
Random House did not originally publish its unabridged dictionary under the Webster's name. The company added it only after an appeals court overturned an injunction that Merriam-Webster had won restricting other publishers from using the name. Once that legal barrier fell, Random House incorporated Webster's into the title of the dictionary. The name then spread to many Random House publications. Versions of the dictionary have since appeared under several different titles, including Webster's New Universal Dictionary, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, and Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. In 1982, the company had also published The Random House ProofReader, a computer spell checker built on its dictionary data.
In 1994, a CD-ROM version of the dictionary was released that included 120,000 spoken pronunciations alongside the full text. That version extended the dictionary into audio territory the printed page could never reach. A further digital development came in 2001, when Random House published its Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, based on the second edition. Dictionary.com, one of the most visited reference sites on the web, built its proprietary content on the Random House unabridged version, carrying the dictionary's editorial choices into millions of daily lookups.
Common questions
When was Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary first published?
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary was first published in 1966 under the title The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition. It was edited by Jess Stein and contained 315,000 entries across 2,256 pages.
What was the first dictionary published by Random House?
Random House's first dictionary was the American College Dictionary, published in 1947 and edited by Clarence Barnhart. It was based primarily on The New Century Dictionary, which itself was an abridgment of the Century Dictionary.
Why is Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary historically significant?
The 1966 edition was the first dictionary to use computers in its compilation and typesetting. Its dataset included a 25,000,000-word corpus, and the printed edition contained 315,000 entries and 2,400 illustrations.
How did Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary handle word entry dates differently from Merriam-Webster?
Where Merriam-Webster's Collegiate cited a single year for a word's first known recorded use, Random House offered a date range such as 1670-80. This approach acknowledged that precise first-use dates are often uncertain.
How did Random House get the right to use the name Webster's?
An appeals court overturned an injunction that Merriam-Webster had won restricting the use of the name Webster's. After that ruling, Random House incorporated Webster's into the dictionary's title and later used the name across many of its publications.
What website uses Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary as its source?
Dictionary.com bases its proprietary content on the Random House unabridged version. A CD-ROM edition released in 1994 also added 120,000 spoken pronunciations to the dictionary's digital form.
All sources
7 references cited across the entry
- 1book$79 Random House Dictionary: Look It Up Under BargainPC Magazine (Jan 25, 1994) — 25 January 1994
- 3bookDictionaries and the Authoritarian Tradition: A Study in English Usage and LexicographyRonald A. Wells — Walter de Gruyter — 1973
- 4newsThe Spelling Bee Is OverAdvertisement — November 1982
- 5newsBRAVE NEW WORDS A DICTIONARY FOR TODAYT. R. Reid — November 8, 1987
- 7webAbout