An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Ælfric's allied Allit Ancren Riwle appears Arab Ayenbite of Inwyt base Ben Jonson bend Blount's Gloss Boethius borrowed Bosworth Brachet Burguy called Celtic Chaucer cited cognate coined common connected corruption Cot.-Lat Cotgrave crude form Curtius derived dial Dictionary Diez dimin doublet Dryden Ducange Dutch early English etymology explained French Gael gives Glossary Glouc Goth Gower Grein Halliwell Havelok hence Hybrid Icel Irish Ital Kersey's Dict kind King Alisaunder later Latin Layamon Low G Low Lat means Milton Modern Morris neut occurs older form orig origin Ormulum Parv perhaps phrase Plowman Poems prefix pres probably Prol Prompt prov Rietz root Roquefort Scand sense Shak shews signifying Skeat Span spelling spelt Spenser stem suffix Swed Teutonic Todd's Johnson verb Vulg whence word Wyclif
Popular passages
Page 175 - MAR. If we had that liberty, we should be as weary of one set of acquaintance, though never so good, as we are of one suit, though never so fine. A fool and a doily stuff would now and then find days of grace, and be worn for variety.
Page 65 - You need not have carved him, in faith ; (they say he is a capon already. I must now seemingly fall out with you.) Shall a gentleman so well descended as Camillo (a lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode with the black guard in the duke's carriage, 'mongst spits and dripping-pans !) — • Cam.
Page vii - Webster, or Wedgwood. A little research revealed far more curious pieces of information than the citing of words in impossible or mistaken spellings. Statements abound which it is difficult to account for except on the supposition that it must once have been usual to manufacture words for the express purpose of deriving others from them. To take an example, I open Todd's Johnson at random, and find that under bolster is cited " Gothic bolster, a heap of hay.
Page xxviii - The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton, with a Life of the Author : and a Verbal Index containing upwards of 20,000 references to all the Poems. By Charles Dexter Cleveland.
Page 44 - He adds : • it is used for a contribution that merchants and others do proportionably make towards their losses, who have their goods cast into the sea for the safeguard of the ship, or of the goods and lives of them in the ship, in time of tempest.
Page 57 - What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness?
Page xii - ... surpasses them all, for it practically comprehends them all. The work of the philologist is to trace the ancestry of words back to their roots. It has never given a single green twig or shoot to language. It multiplies books and not literature. Skeats, the greatest of the philologists, acknowledges that " the speech of man is in fact influenced by physical laws, or, in other words, by the working of divine power.
Page 165 - I'll not put The dibble in earth to set one slip of them ; No more than were I painted I would wish This youth should say 'twere well and only therefore Desire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you ; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; The marigold, that goes to bed wi...
Page 5 - Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder : Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance; Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i...
Page xxiii - Murray. of its language. When an early English word is compared with Hebrew or Coptic, as used to be done in the old editions of Webster's Dictionary, history is set at defiance; and it was a good deed to clear the later editions of all such rubbish ". This is curiously parochial, yet it seems to have been seriously accepted by etymologers.