The LDC has reached an agreement with Merriam Webster, Inc. to
distribute electronic versions of Merriam Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary, Tenth Edition (full text), Biographical Dictionary, New
Geographical Dictionary, Collegiate Thesaurus, School Dictionary, and
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (mass-market paperback) to the research
community. Except for the Collegiate Thesaurus, each lexicon will be
available in two versions, full text and a version with headwords,
functional labels, and pronunciations.
The contents of each corpus are as follows:
Collegiate Dictionary (straight ASCII text files with special
characters indicated by mnemonic codes, such as
{aacute}, etc)
Main A-Z text
Front matter
Back matter
Art (Tiff files)
Tables (Word Perfect files)
Documentation (electronic and on paper)
Biographical Dictionary (straight ASCII text files with
special characters indicated by mnemonic codes)
Main A-Z text
Front matter
Backmatter Prenames section
Documentation
Geographical Dictionary (straight ASCII text file etc)
Main A-Z text
Front matter
Documentation
No maps or tables
Collegiate Thesaurus
Main A-Z text
Front matter
Documentation
School Dictionary (straight ASCII text files etc)
Main A-Z text no art (not scanned)
Front matter
Back matter
Merriam-Webster Dictionary (paperback)
Main A-Z text
Front matter
Tables
Backmatters
Documentation
The cost of the lexicons ranges from $100 to $300 for LDC nonmembers;
LDC members will have the option of receiving one copy of each lexicon
as part of their 1996 membership. A special agreement between Merriam
Webster and the user will be signed prior to releasing the lexicon.
'Research Only' licenses are available from the LDC; requests for
commercial licenses will be directed to Merriam Webster.
Nonmember Nonmember
price of price of
Full Text Headwords* Description Release Date
300 150 Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary LDC96L8A-B**
300 N/A Merriam Webster Collegiate Thesaurus LDC96L9A-B**
200 100 Merriam Webster Biographical Dict. LDC96L10A-B**
200 100 Merriam Webster Geographical Dict. LDC96L11A-B**
200 100 Merriam Webster School Dictionary LDC96L12A-B**
200 100 Merriam Webster Paperback Dict. LDC96L13A-B**
* Headwords, Functional Labels, and Pronunciations
** For example, the catalog number LDC96L*A refers to Full Text
corpora and the catalog number LDC96L8B refers to Headwords,
Functional Labels, and Pronunciations corpora.
Questions and requests for obtaining any of the Merriam Webster
Corpora should be sent to ldc@unagi.cis.upenn.edu.