Dr. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755) was the most influential and idiosyncratic lexicon ever written. This is an anthology of 4,000 familiar, unusual and sometimes bizarre entries from it, covering subjects from fashion to food, philosophy to science. Replete with colourful definitions and quotations from Shakespeare to Milton, the selection fully conveys Johnson's passion for his native tongue - whether formal or 'low', deriving from Staffordshire or Scotland - and brings alive the innovations, fads and crazes of his day, from 'periwig' to 'tea'. It also shows how distinctive eighteenth-century vocabulary was - when, for example, a 'merrythought' was a wishbone - yet how it overlaps with ours in unexpected ways.