Robert William Burchfield CNZM CBE (27 January 1923 – 5 July 2004) was a scholar, writer, and lexicographer.

Born in Wanganui, New Zealand, he studied at Victoria University in Wellington and, later, at Magdalen College, Oxford University in England on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he was mentored by J.R.R. Tolkien. From 1957 to 1986 he edited the second Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary. Subsequently he produced a controversial, substantially rewritten edition of Modern English Usage, the famous style guide to the English language by Henry Watson Fowler.

He died at the age of 81.

External links

• Obituary of Robert Burchfield (Daily Telegraph)
• Oxford English Dictionary website entry for Robert Burchfield

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