votethelanguage.com An america.cool production

★ American Language 250 · The Semiquincentennial Edition

The American
Dictionary.

A reference work of the American language. It exists, it is online, and you can read it right now.

Entries written for this dictionary
alongside the inherited Webster record, 1828 · 1913
Read the Dictionary Become a Founding Patron

— From the Register —

Three entries, as published.

Every civic and legal sense defers to the federal standard and cites it. The editorial senses that follow are ours. That is the whole method: record and cite, never adjudicate.

American

noun · adjective

  1. Civic / Legal A citizen or national of the United States of America. 8 U.S.C. § 1101
  2. Ethno-National A native individual belonging to the distinct, synthesized population forged through the ethnogenesis of multi-century historical, genetic, and cultural fusion between foundational Anglo-Saxon and Sahelian/Sudanian lineages within the territory of the United States.

citizen

noun

  1. Civic / Legal A person born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof; one who, by such birth or naturalization, holds full legal membership in the nation-state and the state in which they reside. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 · Civil Rights Act of 1866 · Calvin's Case (K.B. 1608) · United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) · Trump v. Barbara, 609 U.S. ___ (2026)

dapper

adjective

  1. Adjectival / Dress Neat and trim in appearance, especially in dress; stylishly attired with deliberate attention to grooming and detail. Carries a register of unhurried precision and self-possession. Daniel R. Day, alias "Dapper Dan" (b. 1944), Harlem couturier — 125th Street, 1982–1992. Attestation of cultural register, not etymological credit.

Search the dictionary →

— Why Now —

The country asked for this in print.

On 23 April 2026 the Washington Post ran the case for making American the official language of the United States by its two hundred and fiftieth birthday. Fox News carried it the same week; the wires followed. The argument is not new — Jefferson made it, Theodore Roosevelt made it, and Noah Webster staked his life's work on it.

Nobody had built the dictionary. This is the dictionary.

— Who sponsors it —

Who makes it.

America.cool is an American cultural platform. It sponsors this work and runs the ballot. The dictionary is free to read, in full, with no account; what is sold is standing in the work — a seat, a candidacy, a place in the front matter.

— The work —

The dictionary
Standard American Dictionary
Published

— The Weekly Ballot —

A new card every Tuesday.

A pair — y'all or you all, soda or pop — and the country picks the American one. Then a word the other dictionaries left out — county, HOA, Department of War — and the country votes it in. Where a usage is genuinely contested, it goes to the citizens rather than being settled behind a desk. Under a minute, once a week.

States draft their own words. When a state’s people have put two forward, that state gets its week, and the country decides which of the two is the most American. Founding Citizens are seated in the order they enroll. Enrollment is free.

Cast this week’s ballot Reserve an Elector seat · $50 a year

Voting is free. An Elector seat buys weight — a vote in your state’s bloc on every card in the cycle, and a listing on the state roll. Seats are capped at 538 per state. The dictionary itself is free to read, in full, and always will be.

— The Founding Class —

Be present at the founding.

Founding Patrons underwrite the completion of the corpus and the first publication cycle. Patrons are numbered in the order they commit, and the founding class will close.

  • Your name on the Founding Patron roll
  • A numbered Founding Patron certificate
  • Front-matter credit in the first edition of the Standard American Dictionary

$1,000Minimum commitment

Become a Founding Patron