"Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new words, or combinations of words."
Preface to the Dictionary [from A Dictionary of the English Language]
First and 2nd edition in 1755-1756; 3rd edition in 1765; 4th edition, rev. by author, in 1773; 5th edition in 1784; 6th and 7th in 1785. Over 25 entries in ESTC (1755, 1756, 1765, 1773, 1784, 1785; with abridgments extracted from the folio edition in 1756, 1758, 1760, 1764, 1765, 1766, 1768, 1770, 1775, 1777, 1778, 1783, 1786, 1790, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800).<br>
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See <u>A Dictionary of the English Language: in Which the Words Are Deduced from Their Originals, and Illustrated in Their Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers. To Which Are Prefixed, a History of the Language, and an English Grammar. By Samuel Johnson, A.M.</u> 2 vols. (London: Printed by W. Strahan, for J. and P. Knaptor; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Millar; and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755). &lt;<a href="http://estc.bl.uk/T117231">Link to ESTC</a>&gt;&lt;<a href="http://estc.bl.uk/T14931">2nd edition</a>&gt;<br>
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Text from Jack Lynch's online edition &lt;<a href="http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html">Link</a>&gt;. Reading facsimile edition of <u>A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which the Words Are Deduced from Their Originals, and Illustrated in Their Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers.</u> (New York: AMS Press, 1967). Reading also <u>Samuel Johnson: Selected Poetry and Prose</u>, eds. Frank Brady and W. K. Wimsatt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 277-298.