Defining English: Linguistic and Cultural Literacy in Seventeenth-Century Dictionaries

Andrea Nagy

There is very little evidence of how the dictionaries of the seventeenth century were sold, bought, and used, in the classroom or the home. However, from the facts I have gathered over the last nine months, I can make a few suggestions. First, the early dictionaries were small. This means that they were cheap books affordable for a common person. It also means that they would not have been considered worth listing in the inventory of an estate; instead they were grouped under a heading such as “small books” or “dictionaries.” Second, the first three dictionaries were all published in multiple editions. This indicates that they sold well. That there are few copies of them remaining today suggests that they were used rather than stored away. Third, there was a documented increase in literacy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first lexicographers appealed to the common reader on their title pages, and chose words that might have been difficult for a person who could read English but not Latin. These facts suggest that there was a market for a dictionary directed toward common readers and women. Fourth, as the seventeenth century progressed, the number of dictionaries being published increased. This, as well as available records of bookbuying and reading, indicate that by the early eighteenth century, monolingual dictionaries had taken their place alongside Bibles, almanacs, and grammars as essential texts in the school and the home, even for those who owned few books. This circumstantial evidence suggests that the first monolingual dictionaries may well have been bought and used by those to whom they were directed: “the more knowing women and the less knowing men.”

About Andrea Nagy

Andrea R. Nagy earned a B.A. in English from Smith College and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia with a specialization in Renaissance literature. Her dissertation on Renaissance dictionaries was supported in 1995-96 by a Spencer Foundation dissertation fellowship. From 1997 to 2000 she worked for Oxford University Press as a Project Editor on the New Oxford American Dictionary, a major new dictionary of U.S. English to be published in fall 2001. She has taught as Sweet Briar College and at Yale University, and has a particular expertise in the teaching of writing. Dr. Nagy lines in Branford, Connecticut, and is currently working as a fourth-grade home school teacher.