Site features, announcements, trivia, vocabulary-- from the team of the NEH-funded Johnson's Dictionary Online. RT ≠ endorsement. Also at 🧵 and 🦋
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15 Apr 2023
📣📣 On the 268th anniversary of the publication of Johnson's Dictionary, we are excited to announce the addition of the 1773 edition of the dictionary to our site! Users can now filter their search by edition or look at search results in both editions to compare. 1/
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While the first modern English dictionary, A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson, was compiled in 1755, the modern Chinese equivalent has a much shorter history.
theworldofchinese.com/2026/0…
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FICO. n.s. [Italian.] An act of contempt done with the fingers, expressing a fig for you.
Having once recovered his fortress, he then gives the fico to his adversaries.
Carew’s Survey of Cornwall.
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Sea shanties, folk songs, dialect poetry, the journals of naturalists — these are the places where a word like "shory" would have had a chance. It's not a word you find in Samuel Johnson's dictionary. vocal.media/01/shory-meaning…
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Burrel Fly. [from bourreler, Fr. to execute; to torture.] An insect, called also oxfly, gadbee, or breeze.
Dict.
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As Letty finds out, the story revolves around the first compiler of an English dictionary, Dr Samuel Johnson. When published in 1755, it didn't include any words starting with "X".
And it is this fact... which sets Letty on her hunt.
uk.news.yahoo.com/norwich-au…
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To Untread. v.a. To tread back; to go back in the same steps.
We will untread the steps of damned flight,
And, like a bated and retired flood,
Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
Stoop low within those bounds we have o’erlook’d.
Shakesp.
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Flag. n.s. [from the verb.]
1. A water plant with a bladed leaf and yellow flower, so called from its motion in the wind.
2. The colours or ensign of a ship or land-forces...
3. A species of stone...
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Nozle. n.s. [from nose.] The nose; the snout; the end.
It is nothing but a paultry old sconce, with the nozle broke off.
Arbuthnot and Pope’s Mart. Scrib.
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To SQUIRT. v.a. To throw out in a quick stream. Of uncertain etymology.
Sir Roger she mortally hated, and used to hire fellows to squirt kennel water upon him as he passed along.
Arbuthnot.
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Johnson's Dictionary Online retweeted
"You can make a poem walking in the fields or lying in bed but composing a Dictionary requires books and a desk."
— Samuel Johnson, 1777
Step into the Garret and stand in the very room where Samuel Johnson worked on his famous Dictionary of the English Language.
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To DISBURSE. v.a. [debourser, French.] To spend or lay out money.
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Geometrician. n.s. [γεωμέτρης.] One skilled in geometry; a geometer.
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Inquisitiveness. n.s. [from inquisitive.] Curiosity; diligence to pry into things hidden.
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Quinquefoliated. adj. [quinque and folium, Lat.] Having five leaves. johnsonsdictionaryonline.com…
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To INFLATE. v.a. [inflatus, Latin.]
1. To swell with wind.
2. To fill with the breath.
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To AFFIRM. v.n. [affirmo, Lat.] To declare; to tell confidently: opposed to the word deny.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salike lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elve.
Shakesp. Henry V.
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CONGRESS. n.s. [congressus, Latin.]
1. A meeting; a shock; a conflict.
2. An appointed meeting for settlement of affairs between different nations: as, the congress of Cambray.
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Hemicrany. n.s. [ἥμισυ, half, and ϰϱάνιον, the skull, or head.] A pain that affects only one part of the head at a time. Quincy.
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Nodous. adj. [nodosus, Latin.] Knotty; full of knots.
This is seldom affected with the gout, and when that becometh nodous, men continue not long after.
Brown’s V. Err.
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