Johnson's Dictionary Online – Page 2

September 17, 2021

More Than “Harmless Drudgery”: An Undergraduate Research Assistant’s Perspective

By Hannah Esierman Hannah Eiserman lives, writes, and studies in oskana kā-asastēki (now called Regina, Saskatchewan). She is currently the Arts and Culture editor for The Carillon. Her published work can be found on her website improbablemoonlight.ca. This is part 2 of Hannah’s two-part essay, reflecting on her work for JDO. You can read part 1 of her essay here. Unexpected Discoveries Along...

Dictionary

September 13, 2021

More than “Harmless Drudgery”: An Undergraduate Research Assistant’s Perspective

By Hannah Eiserman Hannah Eiserman lives, writes, and studies in oskana kā-asastēki (now called Regina, Saskatchewan). She is currently the Arts and Culture editor for The Carillon. Her published work can be found on her website improbablemoonlight.ca. This is part 1 of Hannah’s two-part essay, reflecting on her work for JDO. My Contributions as a Johnsons Dictionary Online Research Assistant...

Dictionary

August 11, 2021

Join the Project Team!

Would you like to join the Johnson’s Dictionary Online project team? This project, funded by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is putting two editions of Johnson’s famous 18th century dictionary online. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Johnson’s dictionary was the most influential English-language dictionary in the world. It was relied upon not just by...

Dictionary

June 8, 2021

How do we make 18th century search results accessible to a 21st century audience?

In recent posts, we’ve been giving you a backstage look at how we are building this online edition of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language. In this post, we’ll explain how the computer calls up words when you search for them—and why the search results look the way they do. Briefly, our results display follows modern dictionary conventions,...

Backstage/Dictionary

May 26, 2021

Who are Johnson’s quoted authors?

The chief glory of every people arises from its authours . . . I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to...

Backstage/Dictionary

May 18, 2021

How many words does Johnson define?

How many words did Johnson define in his 1755 dictionary? And why is this question so difficult to answer?

Dictionary

May 15, 2021

What happens after typing the words?

People often ask us something like, “So, you have to get a computer to recognize the words on the page. That’s basically it, right? What else is there to do?” Lots! Here, we explain XML markup.

Backstage/Dictionary

April 15, 2021

Welcome to Johnson’s Dictionary Online

Today, on the 266th anniversary of the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, we are proud to make available this complete, searchable, online edition of Johnson’s groundbreaking work. We currently provide three ways for you to search: You can browse full-page facsimile images, leafing through them like a book You can retrieve words at random,...

Dictionary