William Dwight Whitney - Definition and Overview

William Dwight Whitney (1827-1894) was an American linguist and lexicographer who edited The Century Dictionary.

Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, he was the brother of Josiah Whitney. He was a graduate of both Williams College and Yale, and studied Sanskrit in Germany. At Yale, he became professor of Sanskrit in 1854, and comparative philology in 1869. He revised definitions for the 1864 edition of Webster's American Dictionary. He wrote two books, Language and the Study of Language (1867) and The Life and Growth of Language (1875) He also compiled a Sanskrit Grammar (1879) and wrote grammars of French, English, and German. He edited the first edition of the respected Century Dictionary, which appeared from 1889 to 1891.

External Links

http://www.leoyan.com/century-dictionary.com/hist.html?sub=whitney