One of the First Dictionaries

Many years before the time of Noah Webster, a man named Nathan Whitbey published a book of words. The book, entitled “Whitbey’s Index for Talking and Spelling,” listed all known words in alphabetical order and gave the meaning(s) for each word.

Although the publication contained less than 20,000 entries, quite small by today’s standards, it was used as a training guide in schools all across England and Scotland for years. Having an Index was a sign of intelligence and scholarship, and so owners of the Index carried theirs everywhere.

“Whitbey’s Index for Talking and Spelling” was commonly abbreviated to WITS. This gave rise to popular sayings such as “He doesn’t have his WITS about him” and “I’m at my WITS end.”