Robert William Burchfield CNZM (January 27, 1923 - July 5, 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 link

• Obituary of Robert Burchfield (Daily Telegraph)

1923 births | 2004 deaths | British lexicographers | Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit | New Zealand Rhodes scholars | New Zealand lexicographers