What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first job at the Oxford English Dictionary?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first job at the Oxford English Dictionary was as a lexicographer.

After the First World War, Tolkien worked on the Oxford English Dictionary, then known as the New English Dictionary. He joined the project in 1919 and helped investigate the histories and meanings of words. His work concentrated especially on words beginning with the letter W and on vocabulary of Germanic origin.

A lexicographer studies and records words, including their meanings, forms, origins, and historical uses. Tolkien’s experience was important to his later career because it combined rigorous language research with the historical imagination he brought to invented languages. The job is sometimes described loosely as dictionary writing, but lexicographer is the precise occupational term.