General Details

Title: Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language
Volumes: 2
Language: English
Publisher: Funk & Wagnalls Company
Year: 1941
Pages: 2,970

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Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language Upon Original Plans Designed to Give, in Complete and Accurate Statement, in the Light of the Most Recent Advances in Knowledge, in the Readiest Form for Popular Use, the Orthography, Pronunciation, Meaning, and Etymology of All the Words, and the Meaning of Idiomatic Phrases, in the Speech and Literature of the English-Speaking Peoples, Together with Proper Names of All Kinds, the Whole Arranged in One Alphabetical Order is a massive 2-volume dictionary. It was originally published in 1913; I have the 1941 edition.

The dictionary is inset with a number of full-page plates, some in full-color with tissue paper protection. It begins with 5 pages containing portraits of the main editorial staff, followed by a list of all of the editors. After a thorough introduction on the dictionary's methodology and features, there is a guide to spelling and pronunciation. This is a very interesting section, as it introduces for the purposes of representing pronunciation a "revised scientific alphabet," created in 1911 by the National Education Association (with input from the American Philological Association and the Modern Language Association), meant to represent the sounds of English, one letter per sound; a history of this alphabet, as well as a cursive script for writing purposes, are given. There is a guide to forming compound words, a chart of various foreign alphabets, a key to abbreviations used in the dictionary, and the keys to pronunciation - all words in the dictionary have their pronunciations given twice, once in the "revised scientific alphabet" and once in an older pronunciation key.

This dictionary is derived from Issac Funk's A Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1893); the intent seems to be to record the entire language, but to also prescribe correct usage: "The chief function of a dictionary is to record usage; not, except in a limited degree, to seek to create it. Yet, when custom or usage varies, it is important that a dictionary should be most careful, in its preferences, to give its sanction to the best forms and tendencies. It has manifold opportunities to render good service to the language by characterizing certain words and variant forms of words, and certain meanings or usages, as archaic or obsolete, as foreign, dialectic, or provincial, as colloquial, vulgar, slang, or low, as inelegant or erroneously formed. In the Standard the aim has been to help, so far as this may legitimately be done in a work of the kind, to simplify and perfect the language" (xi, "Introduction"). The dictionary claims to have approximately 450,000 words defined within it, including regional words, scientific terminology, proper names, and geographical names. The dictionary is illustrated with over 7,000 pictures and around 32,000 illustrative quotations from literature.

After the main dictionary text are a number of appendices, including a list of words with disputed pronunciations (including a cross-reference to show the preferred pronunciation for each of the major dictionaries - Century, Webster, etc), rules for simplified (American) spelling (i.e. given the choice of -re or -er, pick -er), a glossary of foreign words and phrases, population statistics for various geographies, and, finally, a chronology of the world events by day.

Sample Entries

I look up "Saint Louis" and "umbrella" in all of the reference works featured on this site in order to provide fair comparison between them. "Umbrella" can be found on page 2597, and is accompanied by a couple of illustrations, including one familiar to anyone who has read my entry on Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia:

um—brel'la, 1 um-brel'ə; 2 ŭm-brĕl'a, n. 1. A canopy of silk, cotton, paper, or other suitable fabric, supported on a radiating folding frame, and carried (usually) in the hand as a protection against the sun or rain. Small umbrellas, when used exclusively as a shelter from the sun, are called sunshades or parasols, and when used in all weathers, en-tout-cas.

Umbrellas, tho seen in Egyptian and Assyrian sculpture, on Greek vases and figurines, and in medieval manuscripts, were not used in Europe as shelters from rain until the 18th century. In the East, as in Siam, they are emblems of royalty.

Known in England in Anglo-Saxon times, mentioned by Drayton (1620), Swift (City Shower, 1710), it [the umbrella] was assigned in Queen Anne's reign to women. Nelson's Perpetual Encyc. vol. xii, p. 256.

Jonas Hanway was not the first to introduce the umbrella to England, although he revived its use. In the Harleian Manuscripts there is proof beyond doubt that umbrellas were known to Anglo-Saxons, for in No. 603 of these there is the figure of a yeoman holding an umbrella over his lord. Beck asserts [Draper's Dictionary] that at the time that Stephen usurped the crown of England, umbrellas were in common use. Frank H. Vizetelly The Sunsahde and the Umbrella in The New Age May, 1909, p. 415.

2. The portion of the body of a medusa expanded like a bell or umbrella. 3. Conch. (1) [U-] A genus typical of Umbrellidæ. (2) An umbrella-shell. [< It. ombrella, dim. of ombra (< L. umbra), shade.] um-brel'‡ [Dial. or Obs.]; um-brel'lo†. — um-brel'lant'', n. A parasol-ant, as the sauba. — u.-bird, n. A South-American fruit-crow (genus Cephalopterus) having a broad crest likened to an umbrella; a dragoon-bird. C. ornatus is lustrous black with a crest of blue hair-like feathers, and a cervical, fleshy, feathered appendage. — u.-bush, n. A small, bushy Australian tree (Acacia osswaldi), with a hard, close-grained wood, and suitable for shade or for tall hedges. — u.-fern, n. The common brake or bracken. — u.-fir, n. The parasol-fir. See Sciadopitys. — u.-grass, n. 1. An Australian grass (Panicum decompositum) with millet-like seeds, which the natives make into cakes. 2. A sedge (Fuirena squarrosa) growing in wet sandy places from New Jersey to Texas. — u.-man, n. 1. A man who sells or mends umbrellas. 2. [London, Eng.] A man who sells fruit, confectionery, etc., under an umbrella. — u.-palm, n. 1. An ornamental hothouse palm (Kentia canterburyana), from Lord Howe's Island, with long pinnate leaves in a dense head. 2. The umbrella-plant. — u.-pine, n. Same as Umbrella-fir. — u.-plant, n. An East-African sedge (Cyperus alternifolius), cultivated for ornament. — u.-pulley, n. A pulley containing a skeleton umbrella-like projection around the center, to facilitate removal, insertion of cotters, etc. — u.-shell, n. An umbrelloid gastropod of warm seas, having an umbrella-like shell. — u.-stand, n. Anything, as a rack or a tall jar, for holding umbrellas. — u.-wort, n. Any plant of the genus Allionia.

This was all that was contained under the headword "umbrella," but there are other related entries listed after, such as "umbrellaed" and "umbrella-leaf."

The entry for "Saint Louis" is found on page 2160:

Saint Lou'is, 1. sēnt lū'ıs or lū'ı; 2 sānt lṳis or lṳi. 1. A French island at the mouth of the Senegal river, West Africa. 2. Lake, an expansion of the Saint Lawrence river at the mouth of the Ottawa, above Lachine Rapids. 3. A river in N.E. Minnesota; length, 220 m. to Lake Superior. 4. A county in N.E. Minnesota; 5,562 sq. m.; county-seat, Duluth. 5. A county in E. Missouri; 483 sq. m.; county-seat, Clayton. 6. A city in Missouri, on the Mississippi river; a manufacturing, commercial, and railroad center; seat of Christian Brothers College (Roman Catholic), founded in 1851; of Saint Louis University (Roman Catholic), founded in 1818; and of Washington University (non-sectarian), founded in 1853. 7. A city in Gratiot county, Mich. 8. A town in Saint Louis Island; capital of Senegal. 9. A town in Réunion Island.