"The Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia", edited by William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E. Smith, comprises thirteen volumes, including over 500,000 defined terms, two volumes of concise encyclopedic entries, and a world atlas. "The Century Dictionary" contains full, accurate, and clear definitions, and its many supporting quotations are chosen to illustrate, where helpful, the typical uses of a word or sense. Whitney, who is still regarded as the greatest American linguist of his time, gathered together a remarkable staff of general and specialist editors, which included many luminaries of American scholarship to compile this beautiful dictionary.
William Dwight Whitney (1827-1894) was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer who edited The Century Dictionary.
Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, February 9, 1827. He entered Williams College at fifteen, graduating in 1845. He continued studying and worked at a bank in Northampton for several years, then assisted his brother Josiah Whitney on a geological surve...