D I C T I O N A RY O F T H E E N G L I S H

LANGUAGE BY SAMUEL JOHNSON

Muntean Ariana-Adelina
LRE II
 Samuel Johnson

 Samuel Johnson was an

English writer
 He was born on September
18, 1709 and died on
December 13, 1784.
 He was best know as an
editor of a dictionary of the
English Language.
 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of
the English Language is one of the
most famous dictionaries in
history.

First published in 1755, the

dictionary took just over eight
years to compile, required six
helpers and listed 40,000 words.
The dictionary was published
in two volumes.
It was a more extensive and
complex dictionary than any
of its predecessors.
 The most important innovation

His most important innovation was

his decision to include quotations to
illustrate words he defined. In all,
there are over 114,000 quotations in
the dictionary. The simplicity of
definitions was paramount. There
needed to be clarity. These
quotations are the heart of
Johnson’s Dictionary.
 INFLUENCE

Anyone after Johnson who tried to create a dictionary did

so in his shadow.
Johnson's influence was not limited to Britain and English,
the President of the Florence Academy declared that: "The
dictionary will remain a monument to the glory of the
author, an honor to his own country."
What was important about Samuel Johnson's
dictionary?

Johnson's dictionary is most significant for the

way it stimulated lexicography, raised the status
and interest of the dictionary as a literary and
cultural artifact, and generated new genres of
dictionary.