Wiktionary:Merriam-Webster

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Merriam-Webster (MW) is a classic popular American dictionary. The purpose of this page is to document some of its practices since some may find them inspiring or interesting.

Inclusion criteria

The requirements per MW's official guide are that to be included, "a word must be used in a substantial number of citations that come from a wide range of publications over a considerable period of time."^[1] Another guide mentions "frequent use, widespread use, and meaningful use".^[2] In the words of Kory Stamper, MW requires entries to have "accumulated and sustained use in print".^[3]

Descriptivism

MW takes a moderately descriptivist stance. In the words of Kory Stamper, "What good is a dictionary that enters irregardless but neglects to tell you that it’s not accepted as standard English? And how good is a usage and style guide that merely parrots rules with no careful consideration for the historical record of edited prose, or whether this rule does indeed produce clearer, cleaner writing?"^[4] Indeed, MW labels irregardless as "nonstandard".

Slang

MW includes slang and takes a descriptivist stance toward it, regardless of complaints.^[5] This includes Internet slang.^[6]

Proper nouns

Unlike OED, MW includes a fair amount of proper nouns, especially geographic names and biographical names. Examples:

First names and surnames:
- No first names as first names and no surnames as surnames. Peter is an entry, but not for first name.
Biographical names^[7]:
- Darwin and Newton.
Other people:
- Solomon, Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Geographic names^[8]:
- Continents: South America, Central America, etc.
- Countries: France, Italy, Argentina, etc. United Kingdom, even United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- Cities: Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh
- Rivers: Nile, Orinoco, Volga, Rhine but no Amazon
Astronomical names:
- Milky Way, Sirius, Canis Major, Magellanic Cloud, Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud
Organizations:
- United Nations, European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Ku Klux Klan, Federal Reserve Board, Red Cross (as an emblem), Red Crescent
- No Warsaw Pact, no Greenpeace, no Democratic Party, no Republican Party, no Federal Drug Administration, no International Monetary Fund.
- In legal dictionary: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Aviation Administration
Other:
- Bible; has Quran and Qur'an as variants of Koran. No Decameron and no Lysistrata.
- Othello. Has Mickey Mouse as an adjective. No Pinocchio.
- Zeus.
- Faust.
- World War I and World War II.

There are separate publications for proper nouns: Webster's Dictionary of Proper Names and Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary of Proper Names.

Hyphenated prefixed words

Most prefixed words that MW has are unhyphenated, but some are hyphenated:

non-^[9]
- No non-standard; dictionary search redirects to nonstandard, where non-standard is not listed as an alternative.
- Has non-native with nonnative as a variant. Has non-aesthetic and no nonaesthetic. Has non-empty and no nonempty. Has non-psychoactive as a variant of nonpsychoactive.
- Has non-American, non-European, but no non-Asian and non-German.
anti-^[10]
- No anti-aircraft, only antiaircraft. No anti-abortion, only antiabortion.
- Has anti-immigrant and no antiimmigrant; has anti-imperialism and no antiimperialism. This matches GPO manual. Further has anti-church, anti-cigarette, anti-city, anti-classical, anti-collision, anti-colonialism, anti-commercial, anti-communist, anti-conservative, etc.
- Has anti-American, anti-Arab, anti-Asian, anti-Bolshevik, anti-Catholic, anti-Catholicism, anti-Christian, anti-French, anti-German, anti-HIV, anti-Islamic, anti-Israel, anti-Muslim, anti-Japanese, anti-Jewish, anti-Judaism, etc. This matches GPO manual.
ex-^[11]
- Has ex-boyfriend, ex-fiancée, ex-girlfriend, ex-wife and ex-husband. No ex-minister.
un-^[12]
- Has un-English and un-American. Has un-air-conditioned as a variant of unair-conditioned.

Hypothesis: MW chooses headwords in such a way so as to serve as a spelling guide for the American audience. It does not worry whether a term is a hyphenated quasi-sum-of-parts.

Hyphenated suffixed words

Suffixed words are not hyphenated in general, but for some of those suffixed with -less and -like.

-less
- MW has bell-less, hull-less, shell-less, wall-less (to split 3 consonants?)
-like
- MW has bulb-like, shell-like, wall-like (to split 3 consonants?), Zen-like

Prefixes, suffixes and combining forms

About whether to include -otomy together with -tomy: MW has -metry, -stomy, -tomy, -nomy, -cracy and -logy. It has no -ometry, -ostomy, -otomy, -onomy, and -ology. But it has -ocracy. It has -onymy, traced by Wiktionary to ὄνομα (ónoma), so the -o- is not the interfix but rather part of the etymon. It has -osis.

Thesaurus

MW has a synonym thesaurus with synonyms, antonyms and words "related", which are near-synonyms. It has "more than 275,000 synonyms, antonyms, related words, and idiomatic phrases".^[13]

Templates

{{R:MWO}} links to the online version publicly accessible.