With over half a million words and names defined or described,The Century Dictionary became the largest dictionary of its kind in the English language when it was published. It includes over ten thousand images and illustrations, and required the input of over one hundred scholars to complete. Edited by Sanskrit scholar and linguist William Dwight Whitney, this dictionary became a primary source for subsequent dictionaries and encyclopedias, including the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary. Striving to not only include words in modern usage, The Century Dictionary sought to record the main body of English speech that possessed historical, etymological, literary, scientific, or practical value.