The World Book Dictionary is a two-volume English dictionary published as a supplement to the World Book Encyclopedia . It was originally published in 1963 by Field Enterprises under the editorship of Clarence Barnhart , who wrote definitions for the Thorndike-Barnhart graded dictionary series for children, based on the educational works of Edward Thorndike whom Clarence Barnhart had known and worked with decades before. In some editions it was called the World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary . The writing and editing of special articles was carried out by the staff of the World Book Encyclopedia . Encyclopedia staff also reviewed the work for consistency with the encyclopedia and appropriateness of its users.
20-483: Like the encyclopedia, it is designed to be user friendly to young people, yet comprehensive enough to be useful to adults. The definitions are designed with consideration for the age at which a person usually encounters the word. Quotations or sample sentences are offered with many words. Most proper names are excluded, leaving their treatment to the encyclopedia. The word list is based on a formula for calculating frequency of use. Originally covering about 180,000 words, it
40-546: A typographic aesthetic that foreshadowed a norm of 20th century book printing. Prefigured in De Vinne's work on the Century Magazine from its origins as Scribner's Monthly in 1870, the printer eschewed the thin hairlines and reduced legibility of the 'modern' serif typefaces that were predominantly used in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, favouring Caslon as a sturdier and more legible 'old style' face instead. Due to
60-517: Is a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country (with limitations, such as living persons only, in Who's Who , or deceased people only, in the Dictionary of National Biography ). Others are specialized, in that they cover important names in a subject field, such as architecture or engineering. Tarif Khalidi claimed
80-584: Is an expansion of the 1841 second edition of Noah Webster 's American Dictionary . In 1882 The Century Company of New York bought the American rights to The Imperial Dictionary from Blackie and Son. The first edition of the Century Dictionary was published from 1889 to 1891 by The Century Company, and was described as "six volumes in twenty four". The first edition runs to 7,046 pages and features some 10,000 wood-engraved illustrations. It
100-763: The Facts on File Student's Dictionary of American English (2008). David Barnhart continues to edit the Barnhart Dictionary Companion and the Barnhart New-Words Concordance . Prior to the World Book Dictionary, Barnhart published the Thorndike-Barnhart range of school dictionaries from which much of the World Book Dictionary was derived. Barnhart and psychologist Edward Thorndike co-created
120-769: The Thorndike-Century Junior Dictionary in 1935 followed by the Thorndike-Century Senior Dictionary in 1941. Thorndike died shortly thereafter, and Barnhart continued the work, retaining Thorndike's name in the titles. Eventually these became a series of three student dictionaries: Junior, Intermediate, and Advanced. The dictionaries were popular in American schools from the 1950s through to the 1980s. They were published by Scott Foresman Publishing in Chicago, USA and updated every 3 years or so. In 1997 Scott Foresman
140-505: The Cyclopedia. The completed dictionary contained over 500,000 entries, more than Webster's New International or Funk and Wagnalls New Standard , the largest other dictionaries of the period. Each form of a word was treated separately, and liberal numbers of quotations and additional information were included to support the definitions. In its etymologies , Greek words were not transliterated . Although no revised edition of
160-487: The complexity of typesetting a large dictionary, De Vinne also devised an elaborate composition stand that gave compositors access to more than seven hundred boxes of type and special sorts within easy reach. The works are out of copyright, and efforts have been made to digitize the volumes. 1889–91 Separately: 1894 , 1895 (Vol 1), 1895 (Vol 1), 1895 (Vol 2), 1914 , 1918 , 1954 (New Century, Vol 1 of 3) Biographical dictionary A biographical dictionary
180-516: The decline of traditional lexicography and the death of Clarence Barnhart in 1993, the work appears to have fallen almost into obscurity as a standalone work, having been overshadowed by the World Book Encyclopedia , which also includes the dictionaries as part of the set. The World Book Dictionary was last edited and updated by Robert and Cynthia Barnhart in 1996. Robert Barnhart died in 2007, and Cynthia Barnhart went on to produce
200-482: The dictionary was ever again published, an abridged edition with new words and other features, The New Century Dictionary (edited by H.G. Emery and K.G. Brewster; revision editor, Catherine B. Avery,) was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts of New York in 1927, and reprinted in various forms for over thirty-five years. The New Century became the basis for the American College Dictionary ,
220-528: The dictionary. A reformatted edition, The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, was published in 1911 in twelve quarto volumes: ten of vocabulary, plus the volume of names and the atlas. This set went through several printings, the last in 1914. The same year, the ten vocabulary volumes were published as one giant volume, about 8500 pages in a very thin paper. The now much coveted India paper edition also appeared around this time, usually in five double volumes (rarely, in 10 single volumes) plus one additional for
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#1732772089671240-400: The first Random House Dictionary , in 1947. The three-volume New Century Cyclopedia of Names , an expansion of the 1894 volume, was published in 1954, edited by Clarence Barnhart . The Century Dictionary was admired for the quality of its entries, the craftsmanship in its design, typography , and binding , and its excellent illustrations. It has been used as an information source for
260-460: The genre of biographical dictionaries is a "unique product of Arab Muslim culture". The earliest extant example of the biographical dictionary dates from 9th-century Iraq , and by the 16th-century it was a firmly established and well-respected form of historical writing. They contain more social data for a large segment of the population than that found in any other pre-industrial society. The earliest biographical dictionaries initially focused on
280-646: The largest encyclopedic dictionaries of the English language. It was compared favorably with the Oxford English Dictionary , and frequently consulted for more factual information than would normally be the case for a dictionary. The Century Dictionary is based on The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language , edited by Rev. John Ogilvie (1797–1867) and published by W. G. Blackie and Co . of Scotland, 1847–1850, which in turn
300-401: The lives of the prophets of Islam and their companions , with one of the earliest examples being The Book of The Major Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi , and then began documenting the lives of many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who lived in the medieval Islamic world. The largest known biographical dictionary ever produced is called History of Damascus authored by
320-438: The makers of many later dictionaries, including editors of the Oxford English Dictionary , who cited it over 2,000 times in the first edition. In 1913, a Ph.D. dissertation on "American Dictionaries" concluded its 14-page chapter on the Century Dictionary with the assessment that the work "far surpasses anything in American lexicography". The Century Dictionary was typeset and printed by Theodore Low De Vinne , who gave it
340-603: The title and subtitle changed slightly from The Century Dictionary; an encyclopedic lexicon of the English language to The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia; a work of universal reference in all departments of knowledge, with a new atlas of the world. Further editions were published in 1906, 1909 and 1911, this time in 12 volumes each. After Whitney's death in 1894, supplementary volumes were published under Smith's supervision, including The Century Cyclopedia of Names (1894) and The Century Atlas (1897). A two-volume Supplement of new vocabulary, published in 1909, completed
360-400: Was bought out by Pearson plc and merged into their publishing company Addison-Wesley . Upon the formation of Pearson Education in 1998 the company retired the work in favour of their own Longman dictionary range. This article about a dictionary is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Century Dictionary The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia is one of
380-456: Was edited by Sanskrit scholar and linguist William Dwight Whitney , with Benjamin Eli Smith 's assistance. In 1895 a 10-volume edition was published, with the first eight volumes containing the dictionary proper, and the last two containing a biographical dictionary and a world atlas . Editions in either the 10 or 8 volume format were published in 1899, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904. In 1901
400-567: Was expanded to over 225,000 words with over 3,000 illustrations, making it considerably larger than most dictionaries, though not of "unabridged" scope. Its vocabulary has largely been drawn from the Century Dictionary , the Oxford English Dictionary , and Barnhart's own extensive quotation file begun in the 1940s. From 1963 the World Book Dictionary was updated annually and received a major revision in 1976. With
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