Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries: Summary & Key Insights

Words are slippery creatures. In my years at Merriam-Webster, I’ve learned that they defy simple existence. They come into being through use, not decrees. One of the hardest lessons to explain to the public is that dictionaries do not invent words. We record them when they’ve proven they belong—when they’ve been used frequently, by many writers and speakers, and across diverse contexts.

A word’s legitimacy is not decided in meetings; it’s earned through evidence. Lexicographers track citations, looking for sustained, widespread usage that demonstrates understanding among speakers. That’s why a playful new coinage overheard at a bar may remain outside the dictionary until it appears again and again in magazines, blogs, and broadcasts. The dictionary resists impulse—it rewards endurance.

To many, this process seems like bureaucracy, but it’s truly democratic. Every person who uses a word adds a vote to its existence. Even slang carries linguistic truth. Think of how words like 'selfie' or 'hashtag' moved from subcultural jargon to mainstream English: the speakers made them real. Dictionaries simply caught up.

In understanding this, I hope you’ll see that words do not come from authority but from us—from our collective speech, creativity, and idiocy alike. They reveal what we care about, what we invent, and how we adapt to new ways of being.

English has been catalogued for centuries, each dictionary reflecting the spirit of its time. Long before Merriam-Webster, there were word lists in monasteries, crafted to aid Latin scholars struggling with English vernacular. Later came Samuel Johnson, whose 1755 dictionary—the labor of a single man—was monumental but as much moral philosophy as linguistic record. Johnson not only defined words but judged them, offering commentary on English society itself.

Noah Webster took a different path. His project was patriotic: to create an American dictionary distinct from British tradition. His spelling reforms and inclusion of words unique to American life—like 'skunk' and 'typewriter'—cemented the identity of a growing nation. By the twentieth century, Webster’s legacy evolved into Merriam-Webster, where scientific method replaced moral commentary.

As I sift through older dictionaries, I see the arc of cultural change. Early lexicographers often approached language as a force to control; modern ones view it as a phenomenon to observe. Today we rely on evidence, not personal conviction. We no longer decide what ‘ought’ to be English—we watch what ‘is’ English. This shift, from judgment to documentation, mirrors a broader humility toward human expression. Lexicography is no longer a sermon; it’s a mirror.