Funk & Wagnalls dictionaries

Funk & Wagnalls dictionaries, family of English-language dictionaries noted for their emphasis on ease of use and current usage.

(Read H.L. Mencken’s 1926 Britannica essay on American English.)

The first Funk & Wagnalls dictionary was A Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1893). It espoused four policies pertinent to its initial and future publications: the ordering of definitions according to current, rather than historical, usage; the appearance of etymologies at the end of definitions, rather than at the beginning; the use of one alphabetical list for all entries, rather than separate sections for geographical, biographical, mythological, or biblical terms; the use of lowercase initial letters for all entry titles except proper nouns.

Isaac Funk, the editor of the Standard, believed strongly in accurate phonetics and simplified spellings whenever possible, a policy to which Funk & Wagnalls still adheres. In addition to the present unabridged New Standard, the company publishes a line of several dictionaries, most of which are based on the Standard Dictionary of the English Language (International Edition), a new work published in 1958. These spinoffs include, among others, the Comprehensive Standard International Dictionary, a reprint of the Standard with encyclopaedic matter added; and the Standard College Dictionary, an abridged version of the Standard. The Standard Encyclopedic Dictionary is a reprint of the latter with the addition of encyclopaedic matter.