United States · Dictionary
Both volumes of Webster’s 1828 dictionary. Verified headword links connect the unpaginated source to the citing opinions; PDF page numbers are navigation references.
Requested text available. Collection target: Volumes 1 and 2 (1828).
Noah Webster · Volume 1 · 1828
University of California Libraries, Bancroft Library copy, call number ucb_banc:GLAD-84018707; digitized by the Internet Archive. All repository access-format scan records are present; sampled title, entry, sequence-boundary, and terminal content pages were checked. The title page at PDF page 9 confirms Noah Webster, Volume 1, New York, S. Converse, and 1828; Hezekiah Howe printed the work in New Haven. The dictionary entries are unpaginated. PDF page numbers are navigation locators only. Numbers appearing at intervals in the bottom margin are signatures, not continuous printed page numbers. The original 1828 volumes verify the editions cited in Fulton and Crawford. The arms and keep entries were also checked as historical counterparts to the 1989 reprint cited in Heller; that reprint remains unverified. Webster’s dictionary postdates 1791 by 37 years. Its use as later corroborating evidence should remain distinct from contemporaneous evidence of ratification-era usage. The scan’s OCR has recognition errors; page images control quotations. Selected senses must be read with the full entry and the citing opinion’s reasoning.
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Samuel A. Alito Jr. · Concurrence in the judgment, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch
Alito cites Webster’s senses of exercise as use or practice, performance, and an act of divine worship. The noun’s first two senses are broad; sense 10 specifically addresses worship. The full entry also includes bodily exertion, religious observance, preparatory practice, employment, and an assigned task. The dictionary supplies linguistic evidence; Alito develops the constitutional consequence in his concurrence.
Samuel A. Alito Jr. · Concurrence in the judgment, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch
Alito cites Webster’s adjective senses concerning liberty from necessity or restraint and absence of compulsion or control. These appear as senses 1 and 5 among many senses, including political, personal, commercial, and physical uses. The entry supplies a range of meanings rather than a freestanding constitutional rule.
Antonin Scalia · Opinion of the Court
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 581 (2008).
Scalia cites Webster as similar to Johnson’s and Cunningham’s definitions of arms. The 1828 entry begins with offensive weapons and defensive armor, then supplies separate senses concerning war, heraldry, law, and botany. Its continuation defines firearms and a stand of arms. The full entry therefore preserves military and nonmilitary uses; Heller supplies the constitutional argument. This is the original 1828 text, while Heller cites a 1989 reprint.
The title page at PDF page 9 confirms Noah Webster, Volume 1, New York, S. Converse, and 1828; Hezekiah Howe printed the work in New Haven.
The dictionary entries are unpaginated. PDF page numbers are navigation locators only. Numbers appearing at intervals in the bottom margin are signatures, not continuous printed page numbers.
The original 1828 volumes verify the editions cited in Fulton and Crawford. The arms and keep entries were also checked as historical counterparts to the 1989 reprint cited in Heller; that reprint remains unverified.
Webster’s dictionary postdates 1791 by 37 years. Its use as later corroborating evidence should remain distinct from contemporaneous evidence of ratification-era usage.
The scan’s OCR has recognition errors; page images control quotations. Selected senses must be read with the full entry and the citing opinion’s reasoning.
Noah Webster · Volume 2 · 1828
University of California Libraries, Bancroft Library copy, call number ucb_banc:GLAD-84018707; digitized by the Internet Archive. All repository access-format scan records are present; sampled title, entry, sequence-boundary, and terminal content pages were checked. The title page at PDF page 7 confirms Noah Webster, Volume 2, New York, S. Converse, and 1828; Hezekiah Howe printed the work in New Haven. The dictionary entries are unpaginated. PDF page numbers are navigation locators only. Numbers appearing at intervals in the bottom margin are signatures, not continuous printed page numbers. The original 1828 volumes verify the editions cited in Fulton and Crawford. The arms and keep entries were also checked as historical counterparts to the 1989 reprint cited in Heller; that reprint remains unverified. Webster’s dictionary postdates 1791 by 37 years. Its use as later corroborating evidence should remain distinct from contemporaneous evidence of ratification-era usage. The scan’s OCR has recognition errors; page images control quotations. Selected senses must be read with the full entry and the citing opinion’s reasoning.
Open reader → Download this PDF
Samuel A. Alito Jr. · Concurrence in the judgment, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch
Alito cites Webster’s two senses of prohibit: forbidding by authority and hindering or preventing. He uses the latter, broader sense while construing the Free Exercise Clause. Both numbered senses and their examples are visible in the checked entry.
Samuel A. Alito Jr. · Concurrence in the judgment, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch
Alito cites Webster while arguing that founding-era peace-and-safety provisos did not make every statutory violation a threat to public peace. Webster lists freedom from war, internal commotion, private quarrels, and mental disturbance, along with harmony and religious rest. Sense 8 also expressly includes public quiet, order, and security guaranteed by law; that legally framed sense must remain visible when assessing Alito’s inference. Related phrases continue on the next PDF page.
Samuel A. Alito Jr. · Concurrence in the judgment, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch
Alito cites Webster’s safety entry while explaining historical peace-and-safety provisos. Its opening sense concerns freedom from danger or hazard; other senses address exemption from injury or loss, prevention of escape through close custody, and preservation from harm. Alito’s argument that the proviso addressed danger to persons or property is his contextual inference from this and other evidence.
Antonin Scalia · Opinion of the Court
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 51 (2004).
Scalia cites Webster for the idea that a witness bears testimony. The precise phrase “To bear testimony” appears under the intransitive verb, while the noun includes a person who gives testimony as well as a person with personal knowledge and a person attesting an instrument. The entry’s broader senses remain relevant context; the constitutional distinction between testimonial statements and casual remarks is developed in Crawford itself.
Antonin Scalia · Opinion of the Court
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 51 (2004).
Scalia quotes Webster’s opening definition of testimony as a solemn declaration or affirmation made to establish or prove a fact. The entry continues with oral and written judicial testimony, an oath requirement for that setting, and a distinction between testimony and evidence. It also gives broader, religious, and figurative senses, including five senses on the following PDF page. Those additional meanings qualify any claim that Webster supplies only one formal legal meaning.
Antonin Scalia · Opinion of the Court
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 582 (2008).
Scalia selects the opening sense of the transitive verb, concerning holding or retaining something in one’s power or possession, to support Heller’s reading of keeping arms as having weapons. Webster continues with twenty other numbered transitive senses, numerous phrases, intransitive uses, and a separate noun entry. The linked page preserves those meanings and examples. This checks the original 1828 text; the cited 1989 reprint remains unverified.
The title page at PDF page 7 confirms Noah Webster, Volume 2, New York, S. Converse, and 1828; Hezekiah Howe printed the work in New Haven.
The dictionary entries are unpaginated. PDF page numbers are navigation locators only. Numbers appearing at intervals in the bottom margin are signatures, not continuous printed page numbers.
The original 1828 volumes verify the editions cited in Fulton and Crawford. The arms and keep entries were also checked as historical counterparts to the 1989 reprint cited in Heller; that reprint remains unverified.
Webster’s dictionary postdates 1791 by 37 years. Its use as later corroborating evidence should remain distinct from contemporaneous evidence of ratification-era usage.
The scan’s OCR has recognition errors; page images control quotations. Selected senses must be read with the full entry and the citing opinion’s reasoning.