Reading Joshua Kendall’s smart new biography of the pioneering lexicographer Noah Webster Jr. (1758-1843 ... of 1775 -- it included 70,000 words, all defined with a “purely American flavor ...

he added new words like skunk and squash. The book wasn’t the big-seller that the Blue-Backed Speller had been. Webster had to mortgage his house to produce a second volume. Noah Webster died on ...

Today marks the 256th birthday of Noah Webster ... edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary that gets released about every 10 years, we often hear about the words added, but what ...

People often introduce a definition of a word by saying, “Webster says . . . “ The truth is, Noah Webster himself — the founder of American lexicography, or dictionary-making — hasn’t ...

A man named Noah ... Webster believed that Americans should have their own textbooks rather than rely on English books. He created a speller that taught students to read, spell and pronounce words ...

The lexicographer was pen pals with Founding Fathers John Adams, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and the new nation’s greatest swordsman, George Washington. Webster has been dubbed "The ...

DEAR RICHARD LEDERER: In reading a short biography of Noah Webster, I was impressed by the number of languages he learned (27?) in order to trace the etymology of the words in his dictionaries.

Happy Dictionary Day, word-nerds! This is the official holiday in which we celebrate the birth of Noah Webster, who would be 254 years old if he were still living and breathing on this planet.