William Craigie

A philologist, lexicographer, third editor the Dictionary, and co-editor (with Onions) of the 1933 Supplement, like James Murray, Craigie, who was born in Dundee, was a Lowland Scot. He graduated from St. Andrews University in 1888 and later attended Balliol College, Oxford. In common with his two colleagues, he had a remarkable knowledge of languages, specializing in Celtic, Older Scots, and Scandinavian, particularly Icelandic.

He has been called 'the most productive lexicographer of his time'

Craigie was appointed by the Delegates of the Press to Bradley's staff in 1897 and worked on the letter G. In 1901, he became the third editor and was responsible for editing N, Q, R, Si-Sq, U, V, and Wo-Wy, as well as approximately one-third of the Supplement (1933). He was knighted in 1928 upon completion of the first edition. While working on the Dictionary, Craigie was also a lecturer in Scandinavian languages at Oxford, and in 1916 became a professor of Anglo-Saxon. He has been called ‘the most productive lexicographer of his time’, and in his later years worked simultaneously on three major dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary, his own Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, and the historical Dictionary of American English (1936-44). In order to edit the latter, he took a post as a professor of English at the University of Chicago in 1925. In 1936, he resigned from that position to devote his full attention to the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and finished the letter I before handing over the editorship to his successor at the age of 88.

The quotation slip written by Craigie appears in the entry for navigation n., sense 4, and reads: ‘1605 Shaks. Macb. IV. i. 54 Though the yesty Waues Confound and swallow Nauigation vp.’