ABSTRACT
The first fascicle of the New English Dictionary appeared under the editorship of James A. H. Murray. It was the beginning of a series which continued until the last fascicle in spring 1928 and afterwards, in various other forms, until the present day, when it is compiled as an electronic database. The origin of the Dictionary was recognition by members of the Philological Society that changes to the lexicon had overtaken existing dictionaries. Murray's "General Explanations", which precede the text, echo the weighty significance of the enterprise. An explicit figurative parallel is drawn between the lexicographical task and the pursuit of science. The dictionary belongs to the flourishing climate of nineteenth-century science, to a period when enormous strides had been made in etymology, and it seemed that sound change could be subject to explanatory laws. In discussing semantic change, Murray seeks the analogy of evolutionary science.
