Definition:

The popular name of Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, an unabridged dictionary published by G. & C. Merriam Company in 1961.

As discussed below, the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach of Webster's Third provoked a great deal of controversy at the time of its publication.

According to Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski, work began on Webster’s Fourth New International Dictionary in 2008, but a publication date has not been set.

See also:

• The Earliest English Dictionaries
• An Introduction to Noah Webster
• Lexicography
• Noah Webster's Plan to Reform English Spelling
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Which "Webster's Dictionary" Is the Real Thing?

Examples and Observations:

• "It was not until the publication of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in 1961 that descriptivism came out of the academic closet where linguists toil and announced that 'ain’t' ain’t always bad.
  
  "The immediate consequence is a celebrated moment in American cultural history. What might be called the Second Dictionary War (the first having been Webster’s versus Joseph Emerson Worcester’s) pitted W3 (as we insiders know the third edition) against some of the leading pillars of literary culture. Best remembered among the salvoes launched against W3 was that of Dwight Macdonald, whose orgasmic eructation in The New Yorker called it more or less the end of civilization as he knew it.
  
  "And that was, of course, his real point. W3 did not describe the language as he knew it, as he preferred it, and as he thought it ought to remain. The great underlying weakness that prescriptivists struggle with in these sorts of melées is that they do not necessarily agree among themselves on what is correct, nor do they agree on what 'correct' means, either."
  (Robert McHenry, "The Words, They Are A-Changing." The American, August 1, 2013)

• "According to [editor Philip] Gove in his preface to Webster's Third, 'artificial notions of correctness or superiority' had to be abandoned in a dictionary based on descriptive principles, which meant that in our democratic century, language is what people everywhere and in every walk of life say and mean. The result is a different language from [Samuel] Johnson's or [James] Murray's. The lexicon of Webster's Third is smaller by about 150,000 words than Webster's Second, it contains a great deal more jargon, the lines between slang and polite usage almost disappear, pronunciations and meanings multiply, Latinate terms diminish, etymologies are discounted and many of the sharper semantic distinctions of earlier dictionaries blur considerably."
  (Alvin B. Kernan, The Death of Literature. Yale University Press, 1990)
• The Controversy
  "In the autumn of 1961 the publication of a new American dictionary touched off the stormiest controversy in the annals of lexicography. . . .
  
  "What happened between the Second and Third Editions--in the making of dictionaries and the attitudes of dictionary users--to account for such a difference in reception? Even now it is difficult to disentangle all the factors--the lexicographical issues, the ideological antagonisms reflecting the cultural and social tensions of the early 1960s, the widespread ignorance about language and about dictionaries, the competence and fairness of the critics, and the misleading publicity material issued by the publisher to capture attention in the press. . . . It was clear, as the controversy grew in intensity, that the central issue was not merely the dictionary itself, though it was that primarily; it was also what the critics thought the dictionary symbolized. At stake, so it was made to appear, was the preservation of the English language and the survival of deeply rooted cultural traditions: Webster's Third was portrayed as a threat to both . . ..
  
  "Although there are still editors, writers, and others who echo the attacks of the early 1960s, or who remain convinced that Webster's Third is a poor dictionary . . ., the place of the Third Edition as an important achievement in the history of lexicography is firmly established, notwithstanding its imperfections."
  (Herbert C. Morton, The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics. Cambridge University Press, 1994)
• The Critics and Their Concerns
  "[M]uch of the volume's early reception bordered on the hostile, attributing to Gove (and Webster's Third) not merely inaccuracy but malfeasance and outright, willful ineptitude. . . . [Wilson] Follett charged the dictionary with jettisoning 'a century and a third of illustrious history' and claimed that 'it plumes itself on its faults and parades assiduously cultivated sins as virtues without precedent.' . . . According to an editorial in the New York Times, 'Webster's has, it is apparent, surrendered to the permissive school that has been busily extending its beachhead on English instruction in the schools. This development is disastrous because, intentionally or unintentionally, it serves to reinforce the notion that good English is whatever is popular.' . . .
  
  "[The] disconnect between lexicographers' and readers' expectations surely produced at least some of the latter's frustration and outrage. Webster's Third did indeed decline to make some of the judgements of which Follett speaks; the label 'colloquial' was omitted, for instance, while 'slang' was greatly restricted on the theory that the distinction it implies--between slang and non-slang--isn't as fixed or universal as one might imagine. . . . Merriam-Webster itself may also have been responsible for some of these misreadings and reactions. Its publicity program for Webster's Third presented the book, inaccurately, as not simply revolutionary in methods but also directed to families as an arbiter of language--the sort of book to be kept beside the dining-room table for reference and word games. The company thereby encouraged fundamental confusion already present among readers (and Merriam-Webster) who failed to distinguish prescriptive grammar, which was what Follett and others sought, from descriptive grammar, which is what Merriam-Webster and Gove sought and in fact gave."
  (Tim William Machan, Language Anxiety: Conflict and Change in the History of English. Oxford University Press, 2009)
• Excerpts From the Preface to Webster's Third
  "In conformity with the principle that a definition, to be adequate, must be written only after an analysis of usage, the definitions in this edition are based chiefly on examples of usage collected since publication of the preceding edition. . . .
  
  "[T]he editors of this new edition have held steadfastly to the three cardinal virtues of dictionary making: accuracy, clearness, and comprehensiveness. Whenever these qualities are at odds with each other, accuracy is put first and foremost, for without accuracy there could be no appeal to Webster's Third New International as an authority. Accuracy in addition to requiring freedom from error and conformity to truth requires a dictionary to state meanings in which words are in fact used, not to give editorial opinion on what their meanings should be. . . .
  
  "This edition shows as far as possible the pronunciations prevailing in general cultivated conversational usage, both informal and formal, throughout the English-speaking world. It does not attempt to dictate what that usage should be. It shows a wide variety of acceptable pronunciations based on a large file of transcriptions made by attentive listening to actual educated speech in all fields and in all parts of the country . . .."
  (Philip B. Gove, Preface to Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1961)
• Fifty Years Later
  "In retrospect, . . . the Third seems downright fusty. Word harvesting in Gove’s time hadn’t changed since Samuel Johnson, with readers patiently culling citations from printed works. Now the Internet puts tens of thousands of new words at the lexicographer’s fingertips, the great majority of them technical terms, media stunt words like 'Brangelina' and 'sexploits,' or what Dr. Johnson would have called the 'fugitive cant' of chat rooms, tweets and social networks (think of 'meep' and 'w00t'). And modern dictionaries don’t keep words waiting in the vestibule long. Over the last year the Oxford English Dictionary has inducted 'wassup,' 'BFF' and 'muffin top' (of the abdominal, not the culinary, variety)."
  (Geoffrey Nunberg, "When a Dictionary Could Outrage." The New York Times Sunday Book Review, September 23, 2011)