This work investigates the comprehensive vocabulary of English regional dialects to preserve linguistic variations that were active or recorded over the preceding two centuries. Joseph Wright, a distinguished philologist, compiled this massive reference by synthesizing the extensive archives of the English Dialect Society with a significant volume of previously unpublished field research. The resulting six-volume set provides a systematic framework for understanding the evolution, pronunciation, and geographical distribution of non-standard English speech patterns.

Experts and linguists regard this dictionary as the definitive foundational text for the study of British regional dialects. Readers frequently note the immense academic density of the prose and the exhaustive nature of the entries, which remain a primary resource for historical sociolinguistics.