''A New English Dictionary: or, a complete collection of the most proper and significant words, commonly used in the language'' was an English dictionary compiled by
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...
John Kersey
John Kersey the younger ( fl. 1720) was an English philologist and lexicographer of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He is notable for editing three dictionaries in his lifetime: ''A New English Dictionary'' (1702), a revised ...
and first published in London in 1702.
Unlike previous dictionaries, which had focused on documenting difficult words, ''A New English Dictionary'' was one of the first to focus on words in common usage. It was also the first to be written by a professional
lexicographer.
Kersey later continued his lexicographic career by enlarging
Edward Phillips' ''
The New World of English Words'' in 1706 and editing the ''
Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum'' in 1708.
The original title of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
'' was ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles'', and it was sometimes given the abbreviation ''NED'', for ''New English Dictionary''.
English dictionaries
1702 books
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