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Introduction: The Unsung Heroes of Language
Behind every dictionary stands a person—or more often a team of people—who devoted years, sometimes decades, to the painstaking work of collecting, analyzing, and defining words. These lexicographers are among the most important figures in the history of language, yet most remain largely unknown to the general public. While we readily celebrate great novelists and poets, the people who built the very reference works that help us understand those authors' words often labor in anonymity.
Lexicography is a profession that demands an extraordinary combination of skills: the analytical rigor of a scientist, the literary sensitivity of a writer, the patience of a scholar, and the decisiveness of an editor. The history of dictionaries is ultimately a history of the remarkable individuals who made them. This article profiles the most influential lexicographers in history—the visionaries, eccentrics, and dedicated scholars who transformed the way we understand and use language.
Early Pioneers of Dictionary Making
Before the great national dictionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries, several pioneering figures laid the groundwork for modern lexicography. In the English-speaking world, Robert Cawdrey published A Table Alphabeticall in 1604—the first single-language English dictionary, containing about 2,500 "hard words" with brief definitions. Cawdrey was a schoolteacher who compiled the book primarily for "Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons" who might encounter unfamiliar words in their reading.
Henry Cockeram's English Dictionarie (1623) was the first to actually use the word "dictionary" in its title. Nathaniel Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721) was the first to attempt comprehensive coverage of the English vocabulary, including common words alongside the "hard words" that had been the exclusive focus of earlier works. Bailey's dictionary was the most popular English dictionary for much of the 18th century and served as a key source for Samuel Johnson's later, more ambitious project.
Non-English Pioneers
The lexicographic tradition extends far beyond English. The Accademia della Crusca published the first major Italian dictionary, the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, in 1612. The Académie française began work on its French dictionary in 1635 (first published 1694). In China, the Erya, dating to the 3rd century BCE, is one of the oldest surviving dictionaries in any language. Arabic lexicography flourished during the Islamic Golden Age, with scholars like al-Khalil ibn Ahmad (718–786 CE) and his student al-Farahidi compiling pioneering Arabic dictionaries. These international precedents influenced and inspired English lexicographers for centuries.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
Samuel Johnson is perhaps the most famous lexicographer in the English-speaking world. His A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755 after nine years of work, was a landmark achievement that set the standard for English dictionaries for over a century. Johnson accomplished largely single-handedly what the Académie française had required a committee to do for French.
What made Johnson's dictionary exceptional was not just its scope—approximately 42,773 entries—but its quality. Johnson was a literary genius, and his definitions combined precision with wit. His famous definition of "lexicographer" as "a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words" reveals the self-deprecating humor that enlivens many of his entries. He defined "oats" as "a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people"—a jab that Scots have never forgiven or forgotten.
More importantly, Johnson pioneered the use of literary quotations to illustrate word usage, drawing examples from Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, and other great writers. This approach—showing how words live in actual sentences—became a foundational principle of English lexicography. His work is explored in detail in our article on Samuel Johnson's Dictionary.
Noah Webster (1758–1843)
If Johnson defined British English, Noah Webster defined American English—literally. Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) was a patriotic as well as scholarly project, driven by the conviction that the newly independent United States needed its own distinct dictionary to reflect American speech, spelling, and values.
Webster spent over two decades on his dictionary, learning 26 languages to trace word etymologies (though many of his etymological claims have since been corrected). His most lasting impact was on American spelling: it was Webster who established the American conventions of "color" instead of "colour," "center" instead of "centre," and "honor" instead of "honour." These reforms, which he argued were more logical and phonetically consistent, have permanently differentiated American and British written English.
Webster's dictionary contained approximately 70,000 entries—far more than Johnson's—and included many words specific to American life and institutions. After his death, the publishing rights were acquired by George and Charles Merriam, establishing the Merriam-Webster brand that continues to dominate American lexicography today. Read more about Webster's life and work in our dedicated article on Noah Webster's Dictionary.
James Murray (1837–1915)
Sir James Augustus Henry Murray is the editor most closely associated with the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), arguably the greatest dictionary project in history. A self-educated Scottish schoolmaster from a humble background, Murray was appointed editor of the OED in 1879 and dedicated the remaining 36 years of his life to the project—never living to see its completion in 1928.
Murray's vision for the OED was unprecedented in its ambition: to document every word in the English language from its earliest recorded use to the present, tracing its evolution through dated quotations. To gather the necessary evidence, Murray coordinated a vast volunteer reading program, receiving millions of citation slips from contributors around the world. The most prolific contributor was Dr. William Chester Minor, an American Civil War veteran confined to a British asylum for the criminally insane—a remarkable story later told in Simon Winchester's book The Professor and the Madman.
Working from the legendary Scriptorium (a corrugated iron shed in his Oxford garden), Murray and his small team of editors processed these millions of slips, writing entries that set the gold standard for scholarly lexicography. His meticulous methodology, combining historical breadth with philological precision, established principles that continue to guide the OED today.
Émile Littré (1801–1881)
Émile Littré was the French counterpart to James Murray—a scholar of prodigious learning who created one of the most important dictionaries in the French language. His Dictionnaire de la langue française, published in four volumes between 1863 and 1872 (with a supplement in 1877), remains a landmark of French lexicography and is still consulted by scholars today.
Littré was a polymath: a physician, philosopher, political figure, and classical scholar who brought an exceptionally wide range of knowledge to his lexicographic work. Like Johnson and Murray, he was committed to illustrating word usage through quotations, drawing primarily from French literature of the 16th through 19th centuries. His dictionary is particularly valued for its historical depth, showing how French words evolved in meaning over time. The Littré continues to be published in updated editions and serves as an essential complement to the Académie française's own dictionary.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859) are best known as collectors of fairy tales, but their most ambitious intellectual project was the Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary), begun in 1838. Inspired by their pioneering work in comparative and historical linguistics—Jacob's "Grimm's Law" describing systematic sound changes between Germanic and other Indo-European languages remains a cornerstone of historical linguistics—the brothers set out to create a comprehensive historical dictionary of the German language.
The scale of the project was staggering. Jacob and Wilhelm worked on the dictionary until their deaths, reaching only the letter "F" (Jacob) and "D" (Wilhelm). The project was continued by successive generations of German scholars and was not completed until 1961—123 years after it began. A revised and expanded edition is still being produced today. The Deutsches Wörterbuch stands as both a monument to the Grimms' scholarly vision and a testament to the extraordinary patience that large-scale lexicography demands.
Modern Lexicographers
The 20th and 21st centuries have produced many distinguished lexicographers who have adapted the art to the digital age while maintaining its scholarly traditions.
Robert Burchfield (1923–2004)
The New Zealand-born Burchfield edited the four-volume Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (1972–1986), which added tens of thousands of new words and senses from world English, scientific terminology, and colloquial usage. His expansive approach to including words from all varieties of English helped transform the OED from a primarily British reference into a truly global dictionary.
Sidney Landau (1933–2017)
Landau was both a practicing lexicographer and the leading theorist of English lexicography in the late 20th century. His book Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography (1984, revised 2001) is the standard introduction to the field and remains essential reading for anyone interested in how dictionaries are made.
John Simpson (b. 1953)
As chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1993 to 2013, Simpson oversaw the monumental project of revising the entire OED for its third edition—a task involving the complete rewriting of every entry using modern corpus evidence and updated etymological research. Under his leadership, the OED embraced digital publication, releasing quarterly updates online and making the dictionary more accessible than ever before.
Erin McKean (b. 1971)
McKean represents a new generation of lexicographers who combine traditional expertise with digital innovation. She served as editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary before founding Wordnik, an online dictionary that draws on a vast corpus of web-sourced citations. McKean has been an influential advocate for open, dynamic, and inclusive approaches to dictionary making in the internet age.
Women in Lexicography
The history of lexicography has been overwhelmingly male-dominated, but women have made crucial contributions that are increasingly recognized. The OED's early reading program relied heavily on women volunteers who submitted thousands of citation slips. Editors like Eleanor Nichol-Adams contributed substantially to the dictionary's content without receiving public credit.
In the 20th century, women began to achieve prominent editorial roles. Madeline Kripke (1943–2020), while not a practicing lexicographer, was the world's foremost collector of dictionaries, amassing a collection of over 20,000 volumes that preserved rare and important works for future scholars. Her collection, acquired by Indiana University after her death, represents an irreplaceable archive of lexicographic history.
Today, women serve in senior editorial positions at major dictionary publishers worldwide, and the profession is more diverse than at any point in its history. Organizations like the Dictionary Society of North America and the European Association for Lexicography actively promote diversity and inclusion in the field.
The Lasting Legacy of Lexicographers
The lexicographers profiled in this article—and countless others working quietly behind the scenes—have given us far more than reference books. They have shaped how we think about language, standardized spelling and usage, preserved historical vocabulary, and documented the ever-evolving richness of human expression. Their work connects us to the past through etymological research and prepares us for the future through their documentation of new words and meanings.
In an age of instant information and AI-generated text, the lexicographer's commitment to evidence-based, carefully considered language description remains more important than ever. As long as human beings use words to communicate, there will be a need for the people who make sense of those words and organize them for the benefit of all.