Webster, Noah

Cultural  

1. An educator and author of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, best known for his American Dictionary of the English Language and Blue-Backed Speller. He worked for the establishment of a distinctive American version of the English language; for example, he insisted on spellings such as wagon, center, and honor in place of the standard British waggon, centre, and honour.

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A number of widely used dictionaries still bear Webster's name.

Example Sentences

WEBSTER, Noah.—Dissertations on the English Language: with Notes Historical and Critical, To which is added, by way of Appendix, an Essay on a Reformed Mode of Spelling, with Dr. Franklin's Arguments on that Subject.

From Project Gutenberg

Webster, Noah, Sr., a Connecticut farmer, 2; his character and offices, 3; captain in the alarm list, 7.

From Project Gutenberg

Webster—Noah Webster, the man who made the spelling-book, out of which Uncle Frank learned to say, or rather to drawl his letters—gives, in his large dictionary, as one of the definitions of the word crotchet, this: "a peculiar turn of mind, a whim, a fancy."

From Project Gutenberg

Webster, Noah, his "Collegiate Dictionary" on thin paper preferred, 95; his "Unabridged Dictionary" on large paper, 131.

From Project Gutenberg

Webster, Noah: says toast at Mount Vernon was "Success to the mud,"      103; explains how fertility can be obtained from the air, 118,      119; visit of mentioned, 175, 240.

From Project Gutenberg