Noah Webster (1758-1843) was a born-again Christian, who had a strong moral purpose in producing his dictionary, which he dedicated to God. He loathed Johnson's Dictionary, with its inclusion of earthy words such as fart ("wind from behind"), and his surviving copy is covered with annotations disagreeing with the definitions. He answered Johnson's judgment that shabby "ought not to be admitted into the language", by writing, "For the idea expressed by shabby, there is not a better word." Webster deliberately set out to destroy Johnson's authoritative status.

Discussing Johnson's choice of quotations, he declared, "It was most injudicious in Johnson, to select Shakespeare as one of his principal authorities. Play-writers in describing vulgar scenes and low characters use low language, language unfit for human company." Webster preferred to quote from American authors, such as Benjamin Franklin.

In general, Webster's definitions were simpler and clearer than Johnson's and, with over 70,000 entries, his book was almost twice the size of the earlier work.

American English

As a patriot, Webster wanted to create a standardised spoken form of American English, based on the simplest spellings. It is thanks to Webster that American English today uses many different spellings from our own English, including "catalog", "color", "honor", "favor", "plow", "theater" and "center". He also gave a guide to pronunciation, something Johnson had not attempted. The aim was to unite Americans, and give them a sense of their own distinct nationhood. Webster wrote that "a national language is a band of national union. Every engine should be employed to render the people of this country national; to call their attachments home to their own country; and to inspire them with the pride of national character."

Bible etymology

Webster's greatest weakness was his belief, based on the Bible, that all languages emerged from an original tongue spoken by Adam and Eve. He called this language ''Chaldee'', and tried to show how English words had developed from it, through Hebrew. Webster had no idea of the real roots of most English words, in Anglo-Saxon. As a result, the etymologies in his dictionary were even more misleading than Dr Johnson's. For example, he claimed that the English word "lad" is derived from YeLeD ("boy" in Hebrew, a language written without vowels).

Webster was more proud of his etymologies than of any other aspect of his work. He did not realise that, at the very time he was working, a revolution in etymology was taking place in Germany. The German scholars demonstrated that English was a member of a family of languages derived from a common source, a lost language we call Indo-European. They showed how individual words evolved over time, through sound changes, such as shifting consonants. By 1850, seven years after Webster's death, the new etymology had reached the US, and his theories were recognised as obsolete.

Later editions

After Webster's death, two brothers, George and Charles Merriam, bought the rights to publish his book from his family, and commissioned a series of revisions. They employed a German scholar, CAF Mahn, to correct Webster's etymologies for a new, expanded edition, with 114,000 entries, published in 1864. Their company, now called Merriam-Webster, still publishes the dictionary today.

In the US, Webster's Dictionary came to be seen as the ultimate authority. As a result, many other reference books with no connection to Noah Webster now include his name in their titles. Though the name "Webster" no longer has any special meaning in a book title, it is still used by publishers to indicate a work that can be trusted.