lexicographer
noun
Pronunciation
lek-suh-KAH-gruh-fer
Definition
: an author or editor of a dictionary
Did You Know?
Today, we're looking at a word that is dear to our hearts: lexicographer. The ancient Greeks were some of the earliest makers of dictionaries; they used them mainly to catalog obsolete terms from their rich literary past. To create a word for writers of dictionaries, the Greeks sensibly attached the suffix -graphos, meaning "writer," to lexikon, meaning "dictionary," to form lexikographos, the direct ancestor of the English word lexicographer. Lexikon, which itself descends from Greek lexis (meaning "word" or "speech"), also gave us lexicon, which can mean either "dictionary" or "the vocabulary of a language, speaker, or subject."
Examples
Noah Webster believed that a lexicographer's work was to document a language as it is used, without any judgment or subjective influence.
"Google celebrated the life of Samuel Johnson on Monday with an animated Doodle defining the word 'lexicographer.' Monday would have marked Johnson's 308th birthday. He was well known as a lexicographer himself, as well as a poet, essayist, critic and biographer." — Katie Collins, CNET.com, 18 Sept. 2017
Test Your Vocabulary
Fill in the blanks to complete the name for a geographical dictionary: g _ _ e _ te _ r.
Merriam-Webster
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