You may think that English dictionaries have been used for many centuries. In fact, an English dictionary you1today wasn't made until the Qing Dynasty(清朝).  Three men did most of the important2work on dictionaries.  They spent nearly all their lives trying to3words for their dictionaries.  For them, it was a wonderful journey. The largest dictionary in the world is Oxford English Dictionary. The4for this dictionary came from an important meeting in Britain in 1857. Twenty-two years later, Oxford University asked James Murray to be the editor of its new dictionary.

    Murray had never been to5. At the age of fourteen, he left his village school in Scotland and taught himself while working in a bank.6he became a great teacher.  After Oxford gave him the job, Murray had a small house7in his garden to do the work. Every morning, Murray got out of bed of five o' clock and8in the small house several hours before the new dictionary in ten years.  But after five years, he was9adding words for the letter “A”!  He worked on the dictionary10he was very old. Forty-four years later, in 1928, other editors finished the dictionary.