''A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles'' (''DAE'') is a

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

of terms appearing in English in the United States that was published in four volumes from 1938 to 1944 by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

. Intended to pick up where the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' left off, it covers

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

words and phrases in use from the first English settlements up to the start of the 20th century.

History

The work was begun in 1925 by William A. Craigie. The first volume appeared in 1936 under the editorship of Craigie and James R. Hulbert, a professor of English at the University of Chicago. The four volume edition was completed with the help of George Watson and

Allen Walker Read Allen Walker Read (June 2, 1906 – October 16, 2002) was an American etymologist and lexicographer. Born in Minnesota, he spent much of his career as a professor at Columbia University in New York. Read's work ''Classic American Graffiti'' is we ...

. The group referenced early literature depicting American regional accents, including three novels by

John Neal John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876) was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1 ...

: '' Brother Jonathan'' (1825), '' Rachel Dyer'' (1828), and ''The Down-Easters, &c. &c. &c.'' (1833). The work was one of the sources for the '' Dictionary of Americanisms'', c. 1952, prepared under the direction of Mitford Mathews. A similar, but unrelated modern work, the ''

Dictionary of American Regional English The ''Dictionary of American Regional English'' (''DARE'') is a record of regional variations within American English, published in five volumes from 1985 to 2012 and based on data mostly collected in the 1960s. It differs from other dictionarie ...

,'' has been compiled to show dialect variation.

Volumes

:I. A – Corn patch. :II. Corn pit – Honk. :III. Honk – Record. :IV. Recorder – Zu-zu, Bibliography (p. 2529-2552)

Notes

English dictionaries American literature Books about American English 1938 non-fiction books University of Chicago Press books {{US-book-stub