The private space races of billionaires like Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are staged as humanity‘s ticket to progress, transformation, and even immortality in outer space. The colonial rhetoric that continues to accompany this new industry, however, is a reminder that their plans are neither altruistic visions nor merely harmless pet projects of the super-rich.

As the world’s largest and most comprehensive Latin dictionary gets a digital makeover, lexicographer Adam Gitner tells us what it’s like to work on a monumental project that generations of scholars have contributed to – but is still a work in progress after 125 years.