Esme Character Analysis in The Dictionary of Lost Words

Overview: The Girl Under the Sorting Table

Esme Nicoll is the protagonist of The Dictionary of Lost Words, a fictional character whose life unfolds alongside the real-world compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). She is the daughter of Harry Nicoll, a lexicographer working in the Scriptorium, the garden shed in Oxford where dictionary slips are sorted. Esme grows up literally beneath the sorting table, absorbing the rhythms of the dictionary work while developing a parallel, private project: collecting the words that fall out of the official record. Her story spans from 1886, when she is a small child, to her death in 1928, and it is framed by the discovery of her legacy by her daughter, Megan Brooks, in 1928 and 1989.

Esme's character is defined by a lifelong conviction that some words matter more than others—and that the words excluded from the dictionary reveal as much about society as the ones included. Her journey is one of quiet resistance: she does not march in the streets for most of her life, but she builds an alternative archive of women's words, preserving what the official project deems unimportant.

Plot Role: The Custodian of Lost Words

Esme's central plot role is that of a collector and preserver. Her story begins in the Prologue (February 1886) when, as a toddler on her father's lap, she sees him discard word slips into the fire. She reaches into the flames to rescue one, burning her hand, and reflects that she learned some words matter more than others. This moment establishes her defining trait: a visceral, physical connection to words and a refusal to let them be destroyed.

In May 1887, she catches a slip for the word bondmaid as it falls from the sorting table. This becomes the first word in her secret collection, hidden in a trunk under the bed of Lizzie, the Murrays' maid. Over the years, she adds slips that fall, are discarded, or are deemed superfluous. Her collection grows into a private dictionary of words used by women, market workers, and the poor—words that the official dictionary, with its requirement for written sources, cannot verify or chooses to exclude.

Her role shifts as she matures. As a young woman, she becomes a paid assistant in the Scriptorium, verifying quotations at the Bodleian Library and eventually writing her own definitions. After the death of her father and the end of World War I, she compiles her collection into a handmade, leather-bound volume titled Women's Words and Their Meanings. The novel's frame narrative reveals that this book, along with her trunk of slips, is sent to her daughter Megan after Esme's death, becoming the emotional and intellectual inheritance that defines Megan's own understanding of her mother.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Esme's motivations are rooted in a desire for permanence and proof of existence. This is made explicit in her childhood conversations with Lizzie. When Esme asks why Lizzie does needlework, Lizzie explains that her daily work—cleaning, cooking, setting fires—leaves no trace: