Thomas Blount (lexicographer)

His principal works include Glossographia; or, a dictionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language, now used in our refined English tongue (1656), which went through several editions and remains amusing and instructive reading.

His was the last, largest, and greatest of the English "hard-word" dictionaries, which aimed not to present a complete listing of English words, but to define and explain unusual terms that might be encountered in literature or the professions, thus aiding the burgeoning non-academic middle class, which was ascendant in England at the time and of which Blount was a member.

While some of these were neologisms, Blount did not coin any words himself, but rather reported on the rather inventive culture of classically inspired coinages of the period.

Unfortunately for Blount, his Glossographia was surpassed in popularity with the publication in 1658 of The New World of Words by Edward Phillips (1630–1696), whose uncle was John Milton.

Blount and Phillips engaged for many years in a publishing war, undertaking constant revisions of their works accompanied by denunciations of the other.