Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster has been defining American English since 1831, when brothers George and Charles Merriam set up a printing and bookselling business in Springfield, Massachusetts. The turning point came in 1843, right after Noah Webster died: the Merriams bought the rights to his An American Dictionary of the English Language, a massive work that had taken Webster 27 years to compile. That acquisition turned a small shop into the country's first dictionary dynasty. Today, the company is a subsidiary of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., owned by Swiss financier Jacqui Safra.

The flagship product remains the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, now in its 11th edition. But the brand has moved far beyond print. Merriam-Webster.com launched in 1996 and now draws over 100 million monthly visitors. The company runs a popular Word of the Day email, a suite of word games like Quordle and Blossom, and a social media presence known for its sharp, sometimes sassy commentary on language and culture. Its annual Word of the Year announcement, recent winners include "authentic" (2023) and "polarization" (2024), regularly makes national news.

With about 50 to 100 employees, Merriam-Webster keeps a lean operation. The editorial team, led by Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski, still relies on human judgment for definitions and usage notes, even as the company experiments with AI tools. The brand has weathered controversies, updating the definition of "vaccine" during COVID-19 and adding singular "they" as a nonbinary pronoun in 2019, but its authority in American lexicography remains unchallenged.[edit]