First English Dictionaries

• Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall (1604)

• Bullokar, Cockeram, Blount, Phillips, Kersey and Bailey

• Johnson's Dictionary - the first modern English dictionary

• The earliest dictionaries tended to concentrate on 'hard words' and gave a simple explanation of their meaning

• They focused mainly on highly Latinate, difficult words that perhaps were never really used in the general language

• Kersey and Bailey were the first to include common words

• Johnson was the first to do so in a systematic way and to apply the same careful standards of definition to these words as to 'hard words'

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