By Definition - by Peter Sokolowski (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Everything you wanted to know about the dictionary but didn't ask .... For those who feast on words and their usage, this book is a banquet." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

A veteran Merriam-Webster editor celebrates the world's biggest language through the dictionary

In this engaging narrative lexicographer Peter Sokolowski uncovers the history of our language in the dictionary definitions written from Shakespeare's time to ours. English is always changing. And so our dictionaries present a paradox; they represent stability and standards but they also constantly add new usage and new words (and discard some old ones). The dictionary is, by definition, the story of the way we express culture, authority, and identity with our words.

We haven't always had dictionaries. In Renaissance England, explaining the meanings of words meant translating the Latin of the Church and the French of the Norman bureaucracy. A linguistic class system separated these "hard words" of privilege, prestige, and power from the native English words of hearth and home. Thus, the most common words in English-from go and green to mother and father-were not given definitions in dictionaries until the mid-18th century.

Dictionaries developed as the language grew, and definitions by British Samuel Johnson and American Noah Webster are compared through Sokolowski's close readings, which take us through the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and into current online references. Many questions are answered along the way, including: Is irregardless a word? Does literally have only one meaning? And what exactly are users looking up today? Full of fun examples, and peeks into the mysterious world of dictionary creation, this book will delight word lovers of every kind.

Review Quotes

Praise for By Definition

"Peter Sokolowski's enthralling By Definition is a history of dictionaries, which makes it as well a history of how we think, how we perceive, how we communicate--and, yes, how we spell. A chronicle of the layered attempts to codify and capture the English language--with amusing detours into the languages from which we have usurped much of our own vocabulary--it is absolutely stuffed, page by page, with fascinating nuggets of information, and Sokolowski's genial wit, including concerning his own illustrious place in modern lexicography, makes this an almost viscerally pleasurable journey. 'Curiosity is the opposite of ignorance' is the sentence that stopped me, delighted, in my tracks; curious readers will be rewarded here not only with knowledge but with enlightenment."
--Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English

"Peter Sokolowski's enthusiasm for his subject is contagious, infectious, irresistible. His expertise as a lexicographer and his experience as an ambassador to international spelling bees make him the perfect person to chronicle and celebrate the English-language dictionary. Kudos! Accolades! Applause!"
--Mary Norris, New York Times bestselling author of Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

"Filled with delights. I stopped highlighting the good parts because there were just too many."
--Mignon Fogarty, author of Grammar Girl

Praise for Peter Sokolowski

"You make the dictionary sing little songs." --Nicholson Baker

About the Author

PETER SOKOLOWSKI joined Merriam-Webster in 1994 as the company's first French-language editor and has since written definitions for many of the company's dictionaries. He is active as a writer, podcaster, and speaker on dictionaries and language, and was named among TIME's 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013. Peter serves as pronouncer for spelling bees worldwide and as a judge for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. He is also a freelance musician and a jazz radio host at New England Public Media.