Questions tagged [dictionary-of-the-english-language]
For questions about "A Dictionary of the English Language" (1755) by Samuel Johnson. Use with the [samuel-johnson] tag.
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Symbolism in saying that a grove, in the agitation of a storm, cannot be delineated from its picture in water
In the book The Information - A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick, there is a portion of text which speaks about the gradually increasing meanings/senses attached to verbs like go, make, take ...
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Exactly how long did Johnson take to complete his dictionary?
I recently came across a strange inconsistency regarding Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language: while every (online) source I've looked at agrees that it was first published in 1755, ...
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Rare Facsimiles of Johnson's famous dictionary
I have been collecting some nice facsimiles of Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. Several very nice versions have been printed in recent decades by various publishing houses.
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Why did Johnson scoff those "who toil at the lower employments of life" in the preface to his dictionary?
In A Temple of Texts, William Gass writes:
In the preface to his Dictionary, Dr. Johnson whines (another persistent feature of the genre)—“It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of ...
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