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first one to be at all comprehensive was Thomas Blount's
dictionary Glossographia of 1656.
In 1721 an English scientist and writer Nathaniel Bailey
st
published the 1 etymological dictionary which explained the
origin of English words. It was called Universal Etymological
English Dictionary. Bailey’s entries are fuller, compared with the
glosses in the hard-word books, and there’re more of them (as
many as 60, 000 in the 1736 edition), but his definitions lack
illustrative support, and he gives little guidance about usage.
The history of lexicography is dominated by the names of 3
figures: Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster and James A. H. Murray.
The role played by the first two in the Early Modern English
period of the language was very significant. Their influence
continues today – directly, in the case of Webster, through the
series of dictionaries which bear his name; and indirectly, in the
case of Johnson, through the tradition which led the Philological
Society to sponsor a «new» English dictionary.
In 1755 an English scientist Samuel Johnson compiled a
famous explanatory dictionary which was called A Dictionary of
the English language. Over a seven-year period, Johnson wrote the
definitions of 40,000 words, illustrating their use from the best
authors since the time of the Elizabethans. Although Johnson was
fewer entries than Bailey, his selection is more wide-ranging, and
his lexicological treatment is far more discriminating and
sophisticated.
The book, according to his biographer Boswell, «conferred
stability» on the language – and at least with respect to spelling
(where most of Johnson’s choices are found in modern
practice).The alphabetical section of Johnson’s Dictionary is
preceded by a famous Preface in which he outlines his aims and
procedures:
The preliminaries also include a short history of the
language, with long extracts from earlier authors, and a grammar,
much influenced by the work of John Wallis, with sections on

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