Which dictionary project employed J.R.R. Tolkien after World War I?

The Oxford English Dictionary employed J.R.R. Tolkien after World War I.

Tolkien worked on the project from January 1919 until the middle of 1920. He was part of the team preparing the first edition of what was then known as the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. His work included researching the history and forms of words, especially material beginning with the letter “W.”

The experience connected Tolkien’s philological training with practical lexicography. It also gave him detailed exposure to historical English vocabulary and the development of words over time. That background complemented his later academic work in Old and Middle English and his construction of fictional languages.

The project is often called the OED today, but Tolkien did not write the entire dictionary. He was one contributor among many scholars and assistants. His later fame as a novelist can make the episode seem like a literary appointment, but it was fundamentally a scholarly lexicographical job.