Samuel Johnson, the author of the first authoritative English dictionary, said that “in every new attempt there is new hazard”. He was also suspicious of writing by committee, fulminating against the “hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas”.

There is little doubt that he would disapprove of the new “democratically compiled”, multimedia dictionary published online yesterday, which asks all and sundry to post video definitions of their favourite words. To add insult to injury, wordia.com was being unveiled at Dr Johnson’s house on the 299th anniversary of his birth.

The team behind wordia.com want it to become “the largest and most authoritative free dictionary available online”. They hope to engage users of social networking and video-sharing websites. The Open University, the National Literacy Trust and the publisher HarperCollins are backing the venture. It offers traditional definitions and spellings, but allows all contributors the opportunity to record and upload videos giving their own meanings or associations.

The compilers hope that this will result in debate about what words mean to different people.

Edward Baker, the managing director of wordia.com, said that it “tapped into the Zeitgeist and a gap in the online dictionary market”. He added: “When a word is personally defined and put into video context, it acts as an aide-mémoire, a mnemonic - something instantly more memorable and useful than a textual dictionary definition alone. We hope it will become a language archive.”

The site has already filmed comedians, actors, sports stars, entertainers and people on the streets of Edinburgh defining their favourite words.

One said: “Incognito. If you go incognito it basically means to go in disguise. Superman - when he goes incognito he puts on a pair of glasses and he becomes Clark Kent.”

Another said: “Gregarious. Gregarious to me is my mate Helen because she is absolutely mental. She doesn’t stop talking. She is generally bouncy and talks to everybody and that’s exactly what gregarious is.” Discombobulation is described as: “To be confused, for example when a woman is asked to define the off-side rule.”

Users will be able to rate the definitions according to which they find the most relevant, academic or funny.

Mr Baker said: “The public, therefore, becomes the contributor, editor and publisher of a collective pool of English words. It will be particularly relevant to young people who prefer to learn in a multimedia format.”

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• The Sunday Times 100 best holiday reads
• What will we be reading this summer: the booksellers predict
• Literary festivals: a survivor’s guide