You probably think they're dusty. Honestly, most people imagine a lexicographer as a Victorian-era academic hunched over a candle, scratching out definitions for words like "pantaloon" or "forthwith" with a literal goose quill. It’s a trope. But if you’ve ever looked up a slang term on Merriam-Webster’s Twitter or argued with a friend about whether "irregardless" is actually a word, you’ve brushed up against the modern reality of this profession.
So, what is a lexicographer? At its simplest, a lexicographer is someone who writes, compiles, and edits dictionaries. They are the professional observers of language. They don't just "decide" what words mean—that’s a huge misconception. Instead, they act like linguistic detectives, tracking how you, I, and everyone else actually uses English in the wild. They hunt through Twitter threads, medical journals, restaurant menus, and Netflix subtitles to see which sounds are currently morphing into established symbols of communication. It’s a job about evidence, not ego.
The Great "Prescriptive vs. Descriptive" War
There is a massive divide in how people view the dictionary. Some folks want the dictionary to be a rulebook—a "prescriptive" guide that tells us how to speak properly. If it’s not in the book, it’s not a word, right? Wrong.
Lexicographers today are almost exclusively "descriptive."
They don't care if a word is "ugly" or "lazy." Kory Stamper, a former senior editor at Merriam-Webster and author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, has spent years explaining that the dictionary is a map, not a set of laws. If people start using "literally" to mean "figuratively," and they do it consistently for decades, the lexicographer has a professional obligation to record that change. They aren't "ruining" the language. They’re just taking a picture of it.
Imagine a cartographer. If a new island emerges in the Pacific, the mapmaker doesn't say, "Well, that shouldn't be there, so I'm not drawing it." They grab their tools and mark the coordinates. Lexicographers do the same with words like "sus," "deepfake," or "standardization."
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How a Word Actually Gets Into the Dictionary
It isn't a vibe check. A lexicographer doesn't just wake up and decide "rizz" belongs in the OED. There is a grueling, often years-long process involved.
First comes the reading. Lexicographers spend hours every day "marking" texts. They look for new words, but more importantly, they look for new senses of old words. They use massive databases called "corpora" (that's the plural of corpus). These are digital collections containing billions of words from every corner of the internet and print media.
To make the cut, a word usually needs to meet three specific criteria:
- Widespread use: It can't just be a joke between you and your cousins. It needs to be used across different regions and demographics.
- Sustained use: It needs staying power. Most slang dies in six months. Lexicographers wait to see if a word survives the initial hype cycle.
- Meaningful use: It has to have a clear, definable meaning that people agree on.
Once a word hits that "critical mass," the lexicographer starts drafting. They write the definition, determine the part of speech, trace the etymology (the word's history), and find "citations"—real-world examples of the word in a sentence. It’s meticulous. It's slow. It’s basically the ultimate "um, actually" job, but backed by data.
Why the Internet Changed Everything
Back in the day, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was updated in giant, heavy installments. You waited years for a new edition. Now? It’s a living organism.
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The digital shift has made the lexicographer more visible than ever. Peter Sokolowski, a well-known editor at Merriam-Webster, often points out how "look-up data" tells us what the world is thinking. When a major political event happens or a celebrity uses an obscure word in a speech, the dictionary servers spike. Lexicographers see this in real-time. They aren't just looking at books anymore; they’re looking at us.
This has also made the job more controversial. When Merriam-Webster updated the definition of "female" or "racism" to reflect modern sociological understandings, it sparked massive public debates. Lexicographers find themselves in the middle of culture wars simply by doing their job: recording how language is evolving to meet current human needs.
The Skills You Actually Need (It’s Not Just Spelling)
You might think you need to be a Scrabble champion to do this. Honestly, that helps, but it’s not the core skill. You need a weirdly specific temperament.
- Patience: You might spend an entire week defining the word "take." Seriously. "Take" has hundreds of different nuances.
- Agnosticism: You have to put aside your personal peeves. If you hate the word "impactful," too bad. If it's being used, you have to define it objectively.
- Historical Knowledge: You need to understand how German, Latin, French, and Old English smashed together to create this chaotic language we speak today.
- Technical Savvy: Modern lexicography is 50% data science. You’re working with complex search algorithms to parse through billions of lines of text.
Most people in the field have backgrounds in linguistics, English literature, or classical languages. But you’ll also find former lawyers, scientists, and musicians working as consultants because dictionaries need "subject matter experts." If you're defining a new chemical compound, you better have a chemist on speed dial.
The Myth of the "Real" Word
"That’s not a real word!"
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We’ve all said it. But lexicographers will tell you that if a word conveys meaning from one brain to another, it’s a word. The dictionary is just the trophy room for the ones that won the popularity contest. There are millions of "un-dictionaried" words used in regional dialects or specific subcultures every day. A lexicographer’s job is to decide when those words have become "public property."
Take the word "set." In the print version of the OED, the entry for "set" is massive—thousands of words long. It took years to categorize every possible way we use that three-letter sound. That is the true soul of lexicography: finding order in the absolute chaos of human speech.
Actionable Steps for the Language Obsessed
If this sounds like your dream job—or if you just want to be better at using the tools these experts build—here is how you can engage with language like a pro:
- Stop using one dictionary. Different dictionaries have different philosophies. The OED is historical (it shows how words died and changed). Merriam-Webster is contemporary and American-focused. American Heritage is known for its "usage panel" of experts. Compare them to get the full picture.
- Read the front matter. Nobody does this, but the introduction to a physical dictionary (or the "About" page online) explains exactly how that specific team defines words. It’s the "instruction manual" for the language.
- Track your own slang. Start a note on your phone for words you hear that you don't recognize. Check back in a year. Did they make it into the mainstream, or were they just "fleek-level" flashes in the pan?
- Explore the Etymonline database. If you want to feel like a lexicographer, start looking at the "why" behind words. Seeing how "clue" originally meant a "ball of thread" (from the myth of Ariadne) changes how you see the language entirely.
- Volunteer for projects. Digital humanities projects like the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) often look for contributors or localized information to help capture how people talk in specific zip codes.
Lexicography isn't about being a gatekeeper. It's about being a librarian for the air coming out of our mouths. It’s a heavy lift, but someone has to make sure we all know what we're talking about.