Encyclopedia Americana is a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first general encyclopedia of any magnitude to be published in North America. With Collier's Encyclopedia and Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana became one of the three major and large English-language general encyclopedias; the three were sometimes collectively called "the ABCs of encyclopedias". Following the acquisition of Grolier in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic.
Encyclopedia Americana
This 1921 advertisement for the Encyclopedia Americana suggests that other encyclopedias are as out-of-date as the locomotives of 90 years earlier.
An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms.
Entry for the French word "Amour" (Love) in a paper encyclopedia (Larousse Universel) and in an online encyclopedia (Wikimini.org).
Title page of Lucubrationes, 1541 edition, one of the first books to use a variant of the word encyclopedia in the title
Naturalis Historiæ, 1669 edition, title page
Isidore of Seville author of Etymologiae (10th. century Ottonian manuscript)