What is Merriam-Webster?
Merriam-Webster is America’s foremost publisher of language-related reference
works. The company publishes a diverse array of print and electronic products,
including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition,
America’s best-selling desk dictionary, and Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary, Unabridged.

Does Merriam-Webster have any connection to
Noah Webster?

Merriam-Webster can be considered the direct lexicographical heir of Noah
Webster. In 1843, the company bought the rights to the 1841 edition of Webster’s
magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and
Enlarged. At the same time, they secured the rights to create revised
editions of the work. Since that time, Merriam-Webster editors have carried
forward Noah Webster’s work, creating some of the most widely used and respected
dictionaries and reference books in the world. For more information, see the
on-line article Noah Webster and America’s First Dictionary.

When was Merriam-Webster founded?

In 1831, brothers George and Charles Merriam opened a printing and bookselling
operation in Springfield, Massachusetts which they named G. & C. Merriam Co. The
company, which was renamed Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, in 1982, has been in
continuous operation since that time. For more information on the history of
Merriam-Webster, see the on-line articles Noah Webster and America’s First
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Continues Noah’s Legacy, and Merriam-Webster’s
Ongoing Commitment.

How long has Merriam-Webster been
publishing dictionaries?
The first Merriam-Webster dictionary was issued on September 24, 1847. It cost
$6.00 per copy and earned the praise of such notable figures as President James
K. Polk and General Zachary Taylor. For more information, see the on-line
article Merriam-Webster Continues Noah’s Legacy.

Which dictionary is used in
Merriam-Webster’s area on the WWW?
The WWWebster Dictionary is based on Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition. The on-line dictionary includes
the main A-Z listing of the Collegiate® Dictionary, as well as the
Abbreviations, Foreign Words and Phrases, Biographical Names, and Geographical
Names sections of that book. It also includes 1,000 illustrations and 25 tables.
Selected sections of the Collegiate® Dictionary, notably the Signs
and Symbols section, are omitted from the WWWebster Dictionary
because they include special characters and symbols that cannot readily be
reproduced in HTML.

Are all Webster’s dictionaries
alike?
No. After Noah Webster’s death in 1843 and throughout the 19th century,
Merriam-Webster produced the finest American dictionaries, building the
reputation of the name Webster’s to a point where it became a
byword for quality dictionaries. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s, legal
difficulties concerning the copyright and trademark of the name Webster
arose, and eventually many different publishers — some rather unscrupulous —
began putting dictionaries on the market under the Webster’s name.

The net effect of the proliferation of Webster
dictionaries is a reference-book marketplace in which consumers are unaware of
or confused about what differentiates one Webster from another. In
an attempt to draw attention to the issue, in 1982 the company changed its name
from G. & C. Merriam Company to Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. In 1991, the
company reinforced that move by introducing the phrase "Not just Webster.
Merriam-Webster.^TM " to further identify and
distinguish its products and to place greater emphasis on a tradition of quality
dictionary-making that we feel is uniquely ours.

Other publishers may use the name Webster, but
only Merriam-Webster products are backed by 150 years of accumulated knowledge
and experience. The Merriam-Webster name is your assurance that a reference work
carries the quality and authority of a company that has been publishing since
1831.

How can I contact Merriam-Webster with
questions about their products?
You can e-mail Merriam-Webster at:
 

Or you can send a fax to the attention of the Sales
Department at:
 

(413) 731-5979

Or you can write to us the old-fashioned way at:
 

Merriam-Webster Inc.
47 Federal Street
P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102

How can I send comments or questions to
Merriam-Webster about their WWW area?
We’d love to hear what you think of Merriam-Webster’s area on the World Wide
Web. To send us your comments, send an e-mail to suggest@m-w.com.
Merriam-Webster editors will read every comment sent to us, but we may not be
able to send personal responses because of the large volume of mail we receive.

Born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1758, Noah Webster came of age during the American Revolution and was a strong advocate of the Constitutional Convention. He believed fervently in the developing cultural independence of the United States, a chief part of which was to be a distinctive American language with its own idiom, pronunciation, and style.

In 1806 Webster published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the first truly American dictionary. Immediately thereafter he went to work on his magnum opus,An American Dictionary of the English Language, for which he learned 26 languages, including Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit, in order to research the origins of his own country’s tongue. This book, published in 1828, embodied a new standard of lexicography; it was a dictionary with 70,000 entries that was felt by many to have surpassed Samuel Johnson’s 1755 British masterpiece not only in scope but in authority as well.

One facet of Webster’s importance was his willingness to innovate when he thought innovation meant improvement. He was the first to document distinctively American vocabulary such as skunk, hickory, and chowder. Reasoning that many spelling conventions were artificial and needlessly confusing, he urged altering many words: musick to music, centre to center,and plough to plow, for example. (Other attempts at reform met with less acceptance, however, such as his support for modifying tongue to tung and women to wimmen — the latter of which he argued was “the old and true spelling” and the one that most accurately indicated its pronunciation.)

While Webster was promoting his dictionary, George and Charles Merriam opened a printing and bookselling operation in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1831. G. & C. Merriam Co. (renamed Merriam-Webster Inc. in 1982) inherited the Webster legacy when the Merriam brothers bought the unsold copies of the 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and Enlarged from Webster’s heirs after the great man’s death in 1843. At the same time they secured the rights to create revised editions of that work. It was the beginning of a publishing tradition that has continued uninterrupted to this day at Merriam-Webster.

Further information on the birthplace and life of Noah Webster is available at the Noah Webster House/Museum of West Hartford History.

What is Merriam-Webster?
Merriam-Webster is America’s foremost publisher of language-related reference works. The company publishes a diverse array of print and electronic products, including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition, America’s best-selling desk dictionary, and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.

Does Merriam-Webster have any connection to Noah Webster?
Merriam-Webster can be considered the direct lexicographical heir of Noah Webster. In 1843, the company bought the rights to the 1841 edition of Webster’s magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and Enlarged. At the same time, they secured the rights to create revised editions of the work. Since that time, Merriam-Webster editors have carried forward Noah Webster’s work, creating some of the most widely used and respected dictionaries and reference books in the world. For more information, see the on-line article Noah Webster and America’s First Dictionary.

When was Merriam-Webster founded?
In 1831, brothers George and Charles Merriam opened a printing and bookselling operation in Springfield, Massachusetts which they named G. & C. Merriam Co. The company, which was renamed Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, in 1982, has been in continuous operation since that time. For more information on the history of Merriam-Webster, see the on-line articles Noah Webster and America’s First Dictionary,Merriam-Webster Continues Noah’s Legacy, and Merriam-Webster’s Ongoing Commitment.

How long has Merriam-Webster been publishing dictionaries?
The first Merriam-Webster dictionary was issued on September 24, 1847. It cost $6.00 per copy and earned the praise of such notable figures as President James K. Polk and General Zachary Taylor. For more information, see the on-line article Merriam-Webster Continues Noah’s Legacy.

Which dictionary is used in Merriam-Webster’s area on the WWW?
The WWWebster Dictionary is based on Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition. The on-line dictionary includes the main A-Z listing of theCollegiate® Dictionary, as well as the Abbreviations, Foreign Words and Phrases, Biographical Names, and Geographical Names sections of that book. It also includes 1,000 illustrations and 25 tables. Selected sections of theCollegiate® Dictionary, notably the Signs and Symbols section, are omitted from the WWWebster Dictionarybecause they include special characters and symbols that cannot readily be reproduced in HTML.

Are all Webster’s dictionaries alike?
No. After Noah Webster’s death in 1843 and throughout the 19th century, Merriam-Webster produced the finest American dictionaries, building the reputation of the name Webster’s to a point where it became a byword for quality dictionaries. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s, legal difficulties concerning the copyright and trademark of the name Webster arose, and eventually many different publishers — some rather unscrupulous — began putting dictionaries on the market under the Webster’s name.

The net effect of the proliferation of Webster dictionaries is a reference-book marketplace in which consumers are unaware of or confused about what differentiates one Webster from another. In an attempt to draw attention to the issue, in 1982 the company changed its name from G. & C. Merriam Company to Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. In 1991, the company reinforced that move by introducing the phrase “Not just Webster. Merriam-Webster.^TM ” to further identify and distinguish its products and to place greater emphasis on a tradition of quality dictionary-making that we feel is uniquely ours.