Wordorigins.org

Century Dictionary, The

This is another significant dictionary of its day, now woefully out of date, but still useful for historical purposes. The bulk of the dictionary was published between 1889-1891. A Cyclopedia of Names was added in 1894 and a two-volume supplement was added in 1909.

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Yule, H. and A. C. Burnell (1886). Hobson-Jobson: being a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive. London, John Murray.

A classic look at Indian words that have influenced English and the slang of the British Raj.

Johnson, S. (1755). A Dictionary of the English Language. Octavo. CD-ROM, March 2005.

Samuel Johnson’s dictionary was the first great English dictionary. This is his original dictionary in PDF form on CD-ROM.

Wentworth, H. (1944). American dialect dictionary. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

Excellent, but very dated, source.

Safire, W. (1978). Safire’s political dictionary. New York, Random House.