In this edition, the principal object has been to furnish a work to those numerous classes of the community, who want for consultation, something above an ordinary school dictionary, but who are not disposed to purchase Webster's larger works.

For this purpose, numerous additions have been made to the vocabulary, and to the definitions, particularly from that portion of the American Dictionary which was added in the edition of 1841, and also from the addenda of 1843; so that the number of words in the vocabulary is above fifty thousand. By these improvements, it is made to correspond better with the progress of the language, and with the increasing intelligence of the people of this country.

By consulting general usage, analogy, and the best authorities, by a system of notation easily understood, and by a collection of rules prefixed, it has been the endeavor to make this a correct and convenient pronouncing Dictionary. Walker's vocabularies of Classical and Scripture proper names are annexed, together with variations from Walker, in Perry, and in Fulton and Knight.

To furnish help to those who are studying the structure and grammatical relations of the English language, the parts of speech are carefully discriminated, the irregular plurals of nouns are given, and also the preterits.and the perfect participles of irregular verbs, with many of the present and the perfect participles of other verbs.

It has also been an object to add to the interest and value of the work, by transferring to it from the American Dictionary the etymology of a considerable number of words, which may serve to create, while it will to some extent gratify, a taste for the affinities of language, which are so successfully developed by Dr. Webster in his great work.

It is believed that among the millions who have used Webster's books, there are many who would like to know more of the Author. Accordingly, a short notice of his life is prefixed.

This Dictionary, designed for general and popular use, is now presented to the public, in the hope that it will meet the wants of multitudes of the countrymen of Dr. Webster, not only among the teachers and higher classes in Public Schools and Academies, but also in the Counting House, the Manufactory, and the Family.

AMHERST, October, 1845.

ADVERTISEMENT

SINCE the first publication of this edition, in 1845, the American Dictionary has been carefully revised, under the general superintendence of that accomplished scholar, Professor Goodrich, of Yale College, and numerous and important changes have been made in the vocabulary of that work. This has made it necessary to revise all the abridgments of Dr. Webster's original work, so as to bring the entire series into uniformity in Orthography and Pronunciation. The whole of it has been examined in special reference to the peculiarities which had been objected to all of which, it is believed, are now removed, and the work better fitted to hold the place it was designed to occupy in public estimation:

NEW HAVEN, April, 1850.

1

MEMOIR.

NOAH WEBSTER was born in West Hartford, in the state of Con necticut, on the 16th of October, 1758. His father was a respectable farmer and justice of the peace, and was a descendant of John Webster, from Warwickshire, England, one of the original settlers in Hartford, and for a period governor of the state of Connecticut. His mother, a superior and excellent woman, was a descendant of William Bradford, the second governor of Plymouth colony.

He passed his boyhood like the sons of other farmers, in agricultural occupations during most of the year; attending a district school in the winter, and spending the long evenings of that season at the family fireside, in the study of those rudiments of an English education, which were then taught in common schools.

When fourteen years of age, from that love of knowledge which was the ruling passion of his life, he commenced the study of the classics, under the instruction of the clergyman of the place, the Rev. Nathan Perkins, D. D.; and in 1774 was admitted a member of the Freshman class in Yale College.

While a student, he showed the same traits of character which were afterward fully developed; the same spirit of investigation, the same industrious habits, the same love of order and of propriety in things and in persons around him, the same adherence to truth and honor in his own conduct.

In his junior year, New England was thrown into consternation by the famous expedition of Gen. Burgoyne. It was universally feared that what that commander had vauntingly said in the British parliament, that with a few thousand men he could march over the country, might prove to be no idle boast. He at once volunteered his services, under the command of his father, who was captain in the alarm list. In that campaign, all the males in the family, four in number, were in the army at the same time, and continued in it till the surrender of Burgoyne. There was kindled in his breast the fire of patriotism, which was extinguished only with his life. Notwithstanding the interruption of his studies by causes connected with the war, Mr. Webster graduated with reputation in 1778.

He was now thrown upon his own efforts for subsistence. On his return from the Commencement, when he graduated, his father gave him an eight-dollar bill of the continental currency, worth about a dollar in silver, and told him he must henceforth rely upon himself for support. In order to defray his current expenses, he engaged in teaching school at Hartford, residing during the summer of 1779 in the family of Mr., afterward Chief Justice Ellsworth.

In 1781 he was admitted to the practice of the law, a profession which he had studied in the intervals of his regular employment. While engaged in his studies, he noted down every word whose meaning he did not dis

tinctly understand, for the purpose of further examination. The number of words thus noted, of which he could find no definitions at all, or only very imperfect ones, deeply impressed upon his mind the deficiencies of the best dictionaries then in use.

But, as the embarrassments of the country forbade him to hope for immediate practice in his profession, in 1782, while the American army was ying on the bank of the Hudson, he established a classical school in Goshen, Orange county, New York: The country was impoverished; ntercourse with Great Britain was interrupted; and there was no certain prospect of peace; school books were scarce, and hardly obtainable, and some of them full of errors. In these circumstances, he compiled two small elementary works for teaching the English language. In the autumn of that year, he rode to Philadelphia for the purpose of showing his manuscripts to gentlemen of influence, and obtaining a law for securing to authors the copy-right of their publications. Having exhibited his manuscripts to several members of the Continental Congress then in session, among whom was Mr. Madison, and to the Rev. Stanhope Smith, then professor of theology at Nassau Hall, Princeton, and afterward president of that institution, he was by them encouraged to prosecute his design. Accordingly, having at Goshen devoted the winter to the revision of his manuscripts, and the introduction of some improvements suggested by gentlemen in Princeton and Philadelphia, he returned in 1783 to Hartford, where he published the "First Part of a Grammatical Institute of the English Language," a title adopted at the suggestion of President Stiles, but afterward changed for another. The second and third parts were published in the years immediately following. These books, comprising a spelling book, an English grammar, and a compilation for reading, were the first books of the kind published in the United States. They were gradually introduced into most of the schools in the country.

The improvements upon Dilworth, and similar British works, introduced into his spelling book, were: 1. A division of syllables according to the pronunciation. Thus; ha-bit, ta-lent, the English mode, was rejected, and hab-it, tal-bnt, substituted. 2. The reduction of the terminating letters tion, sion, into one stable. Thus, the English mo-ti-pn, de-lu-si-on, were reduced to motion, de-l-sion. 3. A Key to the pronunciation of the vowels, and such an arrangement of words, that a single figure indicated the proper sound of the vowels of the accented syllables in whole columns. 4. A new classification of words, bringing into the same tables words of a like formation.

At first, when he came to Hartford to publish this book, he could find no man who encouraged him to expect to succeed, except Judge Trumbull and Joel Barlow. Indeed, upon its first publication, it met with much opposition. A pariphlet, entitled "Dilworth's Ghost," was extensively circulated, for the purpose of deterring the public from using it. But the people, not frightened at that ghost, used the book. About twenty millions have been published, and the demand is increasing. persons have learned to read from it than there are inhabitants in the United States. "To its influence, more than to any other cause, is this country indebted for that remarkable uniformity of pronunciation which is

Mor

Soon after the close of the war, there grew up in the country, especially in the northern parts of it, a violent 'and organized opposition to the half pay and commutation acts, passed by Congress, for the relief of the army of the revolution. Indeed, so extensive and deep-seated were the. popular discontents, expressed both against Congress and the disbanded army, as to threaten the most dangerous civil dissensions. In this emergency, Mr. Webster, from a regard to justice, as well to those who fought as to those who legislated for the welfare of their country, employed his pen so successfully in defense of Congress, and in allaying discontent in Con necticut, that he received the thanks of Governor Trumbull in person, and was publicly declared by a member of the council, "to have done more to support the authority of Congress, at this crisis, than any other man."

Like many other intelligent men, Mr. Webster early perceived the insufficiency of the old confederation for the purposes of government. The war, by forcing the states to act in concert, gave it whatever of strength it had. Peace, by removing the common danger, proved its weakness. In the winter of 1784-5, he published his "Sketches of American Policy," in which he urged the establishment of a new form of government, which should "act, not on the states, as did the old confederation, but directly on individuals also, like the present system." This pamphlet, in the spring of 1785, was by him presented to General Washington, at Mount Vernon, who referred the arguments to a member of the legislature of Virginia. It contained, it is believed, the first distinct proposal made through the medium of the press, for a new constitution of the United States. One object of Mr. Webster's journey south, at this as at other times, was to obtain laws from the state legislatures, securing to authors the exclusive right to the publication of their productions. He was, to some extent, successful. Some of the states passed such laws. "Public attention was thus called to provision for the support of American literature, which was rendered more effectual by a copy-right law enacted by Congress in 1790." In 1826, he resumed his efforts on the subject, in order to procure such an alteration of the law as should, by giving extension to the rights of authors, secure to them a more ample reward. To accomplish this, he spent a winter in Washington, in the years 1830-31 An act was passed by Congress at the session of that season, more liberal in its provisions than the former law. In his journeys to effect this object, and in his long attendance afterward at Washington, he expended nearly a year of time.

On his return from the south, in 1785, he prepared, in Baltimore, a course of lectures upon the English language, which, in the next year, were delivered in the principal Atlantic cities, and which were published in 1789, under the title of "Dissertations on the English Language."

In the year 1787, during which he superintended a school in Philadelphia, the convention which formed the present Constitution, were in session in that city. When they had finished their work, Mr. Webster was solicited by Mr. Fitzsimmons, one of the members, to give the aid of his pen in recommending the new system of government to the people. Accordingly, for this purpose, he wrote a pamphlet, entitled "An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution."