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1440
The Promptorium parvulorum
compiled by an anonymous Dominican friar, registers about 12,000 English words with Latin equivalents; this is the first substantial dictionary with English lemmata. -
Period: 1440 to
A Brief History of English Lexicography
The earliest 'list of words' that might be said to constitute the beginnings of English lexicography were the glossaries of Anglo-Saxon priests and schoolteachers. -
1476
Printing in England
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1538
Sir Thomas Elyot
Dictionary (Bibliotheca Eliotae) -
John Kersey
A New English Dictionary, registers about 28,000 lemmas, including many common words which had not been treated in the hard-word tradition (and had not been readily accessible in Lloyd’s rather recherché work of 1668). -
Samuel Johnson
Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language published early August. -
Noah Webster
American Dictionary of the English Language published November (the manuscript having been completed January 1825) in two large quarto volumes, registering some 70,000 lemmas, and showing the influence of Johnson’s Dictionary as revised by Todd in 1818. -
Publication of Worcester
Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language initiates a vigorous rivalry between editions of this dictionary (notably Worcester’s Universal and Critical English Dictionary of 1846 and its successors up to A Dictionary of the English Language of 1860) and of Webster’s, lasting until 1864. -
The Oxford English Dictionary
being a corrected re-issue with an Introduction, Supplement, and Bibliography of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, published in November, ed. Craigie and Onions, in twelve volumes (the Supplement had been made available to subscribers to the dictionary on 21 September).
