Words and the spelling of them are facts, and facts can't be copyrighted (see Feist v. Rural Tel. Service Co., 1991). Creative organization and layout, plus comments and the specific wording of definition go into a dictionary, which make the work as a whole copyrighted.
Patents don't apply unless you have a specific unique method for creating a dictionary.
Moreover just as Kleenex and Jello were nonsense words before their invention as brand names, so too was spelling so irregular prior to Wabster's artifact that the regular use of a particular spelling was no "fact".