PREFACE TO A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

By Samuel Johnson

It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by theprospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise;to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, wheresuccess would have been without applause, and diligence withoutreward. 

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whommankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pionier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clearobstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius pressforward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on thehumble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authourmay aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escapereproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet grantedto very few. 

I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionaryof the English language, which, while it was employed in thecultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hithertoneglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, intowild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; andexposed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation. 

When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speechcopious without order, and energetick without rules: whereverI turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, andconfusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundlessvariety, without any established principle of selection; adulterationswere to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modesof expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages ofany writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority. 

Having therefore no assistance but from general grammar, I appliedmyself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might beof use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulatedin time the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I reducedto method, establishing to myself, in the progress of the work, such rules as experience and analogy suggested to me; experience, which practice and observation were continually increasing; andanalogy, which, though in some words obscure, was evident in others. 

In adjusting the ORTHOGRAPHY, which has been to this time unsettledand fortuitous, I found it necessary to distinguish those irregularitiesthat are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, fromothers which the ignorance or negligence of later writers hasproduced. Every language has its anomalies, which, though inconvenient, and in themselves once unnecessary, must be tolerated among theimperfections of human things, and which require only to be registered, that they may not be increased, and ascertained, that they may notbe confounded: but every language has likewise its improprieties andabsurdities, which it is the duty of the lexicographer to corrector proscribe. 

As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of necessaryor common use were spoken before they were written; and while theywere unfixed by any visible signs, must have been spoken with greatdiversity, as we now observe those who cannot read catch soundsimperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarousjargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavouredto express, as he could, the sounds which he was accustomed topronounce or to receive, and vitiated in writing such words as werealready vitiated in speech. The powers of the letters, when theywere applied to a new language, must have been vague and unsettled, and therefore different hands would exhibit the same sound bydifferent combinations. 

From this uncertain pronunciation arise in a great part the variousdialects of the same country, which will always be observed togrow fewer, and less different, as books are multiplied; and fromthis arbitrary representation of sounds by letters, proceeds thatdiversity of spelling observable in the Saxon remains, and I supposein the first books of every nation, which perplexes or destroysanalogy, and produces anomalous formations, that, being onceincorporated, can never be afterward dismissed or reformed. 

Of this kind are the derivatives length from long, strength fromstrong, darling from dear, breadth from broad, from dry, drought, and from high, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writeshighth; Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una [Horace, Epistles, II. Ii. 212]; to change all would be too much, and tochange one is nothing. 

This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are socapriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accidentor affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth, that to them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard isto be shewn in the deduction of one language from another. 

Such defects are not errours in orthography, but spots of barbarityimpressed so deep in the English language, that criticism cannever wash them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remainuntouched; but many words have likewise been altered by accident, or depraved by ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has beenweakly followed; and some still continue to be variously written, as authours differ in their care or skill: of these it was properto enquire the true orthography, which I have always consideredas depending on their derivation, and have therefore referred themto their original languages: thus I write enchant, enchantment, enchanter, after the French and incantation after the Latin; thusentire is chosen rather than intire, because it passed to us notfrom the Latin integer, but from the French entier. 

Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediatelyreceived from the Latin or the French, since at the time when wehad dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. Itis, however, my opinion, that the French generally supplied us; forwe have few Latin words, among the terms of domestick use, whichare not French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin. 

Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have beenoften obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, incompliance with a numberless majority, convey and inveigh, deceitand receipt, fancy and phantom; sometimes the derivative variesfrom the primitive, as explain and explanation, repeat and repetition. 

Some combinations of letters having the same power are usedindifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as inchoak, choke; soap, sope; jewel, fuel, and many others; which Ihave sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them undereither form, may not search in vain. 

In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode ofspelling by which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary, is to be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not oftenrashly, the preference. I have left, in the examples, to everyauthour his own practice unmolested, that the reader may balancesuffrages, and judge between us: but this question is not alwaysto be determined by reputed or by real learning; some men, intentupon greater things, have thought little on sounds and derivations;some, knowing in the ancient tongues, have neglected those in whichour words are commonly to be sought. Thus Hammond writes feciblenessfor feasibleness, because I suppose he imagined it derived immediatelyfrom the Latin; and some words, such as dependant, dependent, dependence, dependence, vary their final syllable, as one or anotherlanguage is present to the writer. 

In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned withoutcontroul, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I haveendeavoured to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I haveattempted few alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greaterpart is from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I maybe allowed to recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhapsemployed too anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb, upon narrow views, or for minute propriety, the orthography oftheir fathers. It has been asserted, that for the law to be KNOWN, is of more importance than to be RIGHT. Change, says Hooker, isnot made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. There isin constancy and stability a general and lasting advantage, whichwill always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptionsof oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time orplace makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, whichwill again be changed, while imitation is employed in observingthem. 

This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not proceedfrom an opinion, that particular combinations of letters have muchinfluence on human happiness; or that truth may not be successfullytaught by modes of spelling fanciful And erroneous: I am not yet solost in lexicography, as to I forget that WORDS ARE THE DAUGHTERSOF EARTH, AND THAT THINGS ARE THE SONS OF HEAVEN. Language is onlythe instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: Iwish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, andthat signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. 

In settling the orthography, I have not wholly neglected thepronunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent uponthe acute or elevated syllable. It will sometimes be found, thatthe accent is placed by the authour quoted, on a different syllablefrom that marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to beunderstood, that custom has varied, or that the authour has, inmy opinion, pronounced wrong. Short directions are sometimes givenwhere the sound of letters is irregular; and if they are sometimesomitted, defect in such minute observations will be more easilyexcused, than superfluity. 

In the investigation both of the orthography and signification ofwords, their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and theywere therefore to be divided into primitives and derivatives. A primitive word, is that which can be traced no further to anyEnglish root; thus circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave and complicate, though compounds in the Latin, are to usprimitives. Derivatives are all those that can be referred to anyword in English of greater simplicity. 

The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with anaccuracy sometimes needless; for who does not see that remotenesscomes from remote, lovely from love, concavity from concave, anddemonstrative from demonstrate? but this grammatical exuberancethe scheme of my work did not allow me to repress. It is of greatimportance in examining the general fabrick of a language, to traceone word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation andinflection; and uniformity must be preserved in systematical works, though sometimes at the expence of particular propriety. 

Among other derivatives I have been careful to insert and elucidatethe anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which inthe Teutonick dialects are very frequent, and though familiar tothose who have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learnersof our language. 

The two languages from which our primitives have been derived arethe Roman and Teutonick: under the Roman I comprehend the Frenchand provincial tongues; and under the Teutonick range the Saxon, German, and all their kindred dialects. Most of our polysyllablesare Roman, and our words of one syllable are very often Teutonick. 

In assigning the Roman original, it has perhaps sometimes happenedthat I have mentioned only the Latin, when the word was borrowedfrom the French, and considering myself as employed only in theillustration of my own language, I have not been very careful toobserve whether the Latin word be pure or barbarous, or the Frenchelegant or obsolete. 

For the Teutonick etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Juniusand Skinner, the only names which I have forborn to quote when Icopied their books; not that I might appropriate their labours orusurp their honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetitionby one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mentionbut with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Juniusappears to have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner inrectitude of understanding. Junius was accurately skilled in allthe northern languages. Skinner probably examined the ancient andremoter dialects only by occasional inspection into dictionaries;but the learning of Junius is often of no other use than to showhim a track by which he may deviate from his purpose, to whichSkinner always presses forward by the shortest way. Skinneris often ignorant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full ofknowledge; but his variety distracts his judgment, and his learningis very frequently disgraced by his absurdities. 

The votaries of the northern muses will not perhaps easily restraintheir indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degradedby a disadvantageous comparison; but whatever reverence is due tohis diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree ofcensoriousness to charge that etymologist with want of judgment, who can seriously derive dream from drama, because life is a drama, and a drama is a dream? and who declares with a tone of defiance, that no man can fail to derive moan from [in greek], monos, singleor solitary, who considers that grief naturally loves to be alone. [Footnote: That I may not appear to have spoken too irreverently ofJunius, I have here subjoined a few Specimens of his etymologicalextravagance. 

BANISH. Religare, ex banno vel territorio exigere, in exiliumagere. G. Bannir. It. Bandire, bandeggiare. H. Bandir. B. Bannen. AEvi medii s criptores bannire dicebant. V. Spelm. In Bannum & inBanleuga. Quoniam vero regionum urbiumq; limites arduis plerumq;montibus, altis fluminibus, longis deniq; flexuosisq; angustissimarumviarum anfractibus includebantur, fieri potest id genus limites bandid ab eo quod [word in Greek] & [word in Greek] Tarentinis olim, sicuti tradit Hesychius, vocabantur [words in Greek], "obliquaeac minime in rectum tendentes viae. " Ac fortasse quoque huc facitquod [word in Greek], eodem Hesychio teste, dicebant [words ingreek] montes arduos. 

EMPTY, emtie, vacuus, inanis. A. S. AEmtiz. Nescio an sint ab [wordin Greek] vel [word in Greek]. Vomo, evomo, vomitu evacuo. Videturinterim etymologiam hanc non obscure firmare codex Rush. Mat. Xii. 22. Ubi antique scriptum invenimus [unknown language]. "Invenitcam vacantem. "

HILL, mons, collis. A. S. Hyll. Quod videri potest abscissumex [word in Greek] vel [word in Greek]. Collis, tumulus, locus inplano editior. Hom. II. B. V. 811, [words in Greek]. Ubi authoribrevium scholiorum [ words in Greek]. 

NAP, to take a nap. Dormire, condormiscere. Cym. Heppian. A. S. Hnaeppan. Quod postremum videri potest desumptum ex [word in Greek], obscuritas, tenebrae: nihil enim aeque solet conciliare somnum, quam caliginosa profundae noctis obscuritas. 

STAMMERER, Balbus, blaesus. Goth. STAMMS. A. S. Stamer, stamur. D. Stam. B. Stameler. Su. Stamma. Isl. Stamr. Sunt a [word in Greek]vel [word in Greek] nimia loquacitate alios offendere; quod impediteloquentes libentissime garrire soleant; vel quod aliis nimii sempervideantur, etiam parcissime loquentes. ]

Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty, that ofwords undoubtedly Teutonick the original is not always to be foundin any ancient language; and I have therefore inserted Dutch orGerman substitutes, which I consider not as radical but parallel, not as the parents, but sisters of the English. 

The words which are represented as thus related by descentor cognation, do not always agree in sense; for it is incident towords, as to their authours, to degenerate from their ancestors, and to change their manners when they change their country. It issufficient, in etymological enquiries, if the senses of kindredwords be found such as may easily pass into each other, or such asmay both be referred to one general idea. 

The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in thevolumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered; and, by proper attention to the rules of derivation, the orthography wassoon adjusted. But to COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a taskof greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediatelyapparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting mustbe sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, andgleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in theboundless chaos of a living speech. My search, however, has beeneither skilful or lucky; for I have much augmented the vocabulary. 

As my design was a dictionary, common or appellative, I have omittedall words which have relation to proper names; such as Arian, Socinian, Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometan; but have retainedthose of a more general nature, as Heathen, Pagan. 

Of the terms of art I have received such as could be found eitherin books of science or technical dictionaries; and have ofteninserted, from philosophical writers, words which are supportedperhaps only by a single authority, and which being not admittedinto general use, stand yet as candidates or probationers, and mustdepend for their adoption on the suffrage of futurity. 

The words which our authours have introduced by their knowledgeof foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity orwantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, Ihave registred as they occurred, though commonly only to censurethem, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing uselessforeigners to the injury of the natives. 

I have not rejected any by design, merely because they were unnecessaryor exuberant; but have received those which by different writershave been differently formed, as viscid, and viscidity, viscous, and viscosity. 

Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when theyobtain a signification different from that which the components havein their simple state. Thus highwayman, woodman, and horsecourser, require an explanation; but of thieflike or coachdriver no noticewas needed, because the primitives contain the meaning of thecompounds. 

Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, likediminutive adjectives in ish, as greenish, bluish, adverbs in ly, as dully, openly, substantives in ness, as vileness, faultiness, were less diligently sought, and sometimes have been omitted, whenI had no authority that invited me to insert them; not that they arenot genuine and regular offsprings of English roots, but becausetheir relation to the primitive being always the same, theirsignification cannot be mistaken. 

The verbal nouns in ing, such as the keeping of the castle, the leading of the army, are always neglected, or placed only toillustrate the sense of the verb, except when they signify things aswell as actions, and have therefore a plural number, as dwelling, living; or have an absolute and abstract signification, as colouring, painting, learning. 

The participles are likewise omitted, unless, by signifying ratherhabit or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives;as a thinking man, a man of prudence; a pacing horse, a horse thatcan pace: these I have ventured to call participial adjectives. But neither are these always inserted, because they are commonlyto be understood, without any danger of mistake, by consulting theverb. 

Obsolete words are admitted, when they are found in authours notobsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserverevival. 

As composition is one of the chief characteristicks of a language, I have endeavoured to make some reparation for the universal negligenceof my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded words, as may be found under after, fore, new, night, fair, and many more. These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use andcuriosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language andmodes of our combination amply discovered. 

Of some forms of composition, such as that by which re is prefixedto note repetition, and un to signify contrariety or privation, all the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use of theseparticles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited, thatthey are hourly affixed to new words as occasion requires, or isimagined to require them. 

There is another kind of composition more frequent in our languagethan perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners thegreatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs bya particle subjoined; as to come off, to escape by a fetch; to fallon, to attack; to fall off, to apostatize; to break off, to stopabruptly; to bear out, to justify; to fall in, to comply; to giveover, to cease; to set off, to embellish; to set in, to begina continual tenour; to set out, to begin a course or journey; totake off, to copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant fromthe sense of the simple words, that no sagacity will be able totrace the steps by which they arrived at the present use. TheseI have noted with great care; and though I cannot flatter myselfthat the collection is complete, I believe I have so far assistedthe students of our language, that this kind of phraseology will beno longer insuperable; and the combinations of verbs and particles, by chance omitted, will be easily explained by comparison withthose that may be found. 

Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth, Philips, or the contracted Dict. For Dictionaries subjoined; ofthese I am not always certain that they are read in any book butthe works of lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, becauseI had never read them; and many I have inserted, because they mayperhaps exist, though they have escaped my notice: they are, however, to be yet considered as resting only upon the credit of formerdictionaries. Others, which I considered as useful, or know to beproper, though I could not at present support them by authorities, I have suffered to stand upon my own attestation, claiming the sameprivilege with my predecessors of being sometimes credited withoutproof. 

The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered;they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced, whenthey are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations;and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or strikingimportance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidationof our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by Englishgrammarians. 

That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequentlyto fasten, is the explanation; in which I cannot hope to satisfythose, who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I havenot always been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a languageby itself is very difficult; many words cannot be explained bysynonimes, because the idea signified by them has not more thanone appellation; nor by paraphrase, because simple ideas cannotbe described. When the nature of things is unknown, or the notionunsettled and indefinite, and various in various minds, the words bywhich such notions are conveyed, or such things denoted, will beambiguous and perplexed. And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it;things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happilyillustrated. To explain, requires the use of terms less abstrusethan that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot alwaysbe found; for as nothing can be proved but by supposing somethingintuitively known, and evident without proof, so nothing can bedefined but by the use of words too plain to admit a definition. 

Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtle and evanescentto be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those which are by thegrammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are sufferedto pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse, or to modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in livingtongues to have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such asno other form of expression can convey. 

My labour has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs toofrequent in the English language, of which the signification isso loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and thesenses detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hardto trace them through the maze of variation, to catch them on thebrink of utter inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, orinterpret them by any words of distinct and settled meaning; suchare bear, break, come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn, throw. If of these the whole power is notaccurately delivered, it must be remembered, that while our languageis yet living, and variable by the caprice of every one that speaksit, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and can no morebe ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation ofa storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in the water. 

The particles are among all nations applied with so great latitude, that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme ofexplication: this difficulty is not less, nor perhaps greater, inEnglish, than in other languages. I have laboured them with diligence, I hope with success; such at least as can be expected in a task, which no man, however learned or sagacious, has yet been able toperform. 

Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do notunderstand them; these might have been omitted very often withlittle inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity asto decline this confession: for when Tully owns himself ignorantwhether lessus, in the twelve tables, means a funeral song, or mourning garment; and Aristotle doubts whether [word in Greek]in the Iliad, signifies a mule, or muleteer, I may surely, withoutshame, leave some obscurities to happier industry, or futureinformation. 

The rigour of interpretative lexicography requires that theexplanation, and the word explained, should always be reciprocal;this I have always endeavoured, but could not always attain. Wordsare seldom exactly synonimous; a new term was not introduced, but because the former was thought inadequate: names, therefore, have often many ideas, but few ideas have many names. It was thennecessary to use the proximate word, for the deficiency of singleterms can very seldom be supplied by circumlocution; nor is theinconvenience great of such mutilated interpretations, because thesense may easily be collected entire from the examples. 

In every word of extensive use, it was requisite to mark the progressof its meaning, and show by what gradations of intermediate senseit has passed from its primitive to its remote and accidentalsignification; so that every foregoing explanation should tend tothat which follows, and the series be regularly concatenated fromthe first notion to the last. 

This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses maybe so interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, norany reason be assigned why one should be ranged before the other. When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive series be formed of senses in their naturecollateral? The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly intoeach other; so that though on one side they apparently differ, yetit is impossible to mark the point of contact. Ideas of the samerace, though not exactly alike, are sometimes so little different, that no words can express the dissimilitude, though the mind easilyperceives it, when they are exhibited together; and sometimes thereis such a confusion of acceptations, that discernment is wearied, and distinction puzzled, and perseverance herself hurries to anend, by crouding together what she cannot separate. 

These complaints of difficulty will, by those that have neverconsidered words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargonof a man willing to magnify his labours, and procure veneration tohis studies by involution and obscurity. But every art is obscureto those that have not learned it: this uncertainty of terms, and commixture of ideas, is well known to those who have joinedphilosophy with grammar; and if I have not expressed them veryclearly, it must be remembered that I am speaking of that whichwords are insufficient to explain. 

The original sense of words is often driven out of use by theirmetaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake ofa regular origination. Thus I know not whether ardour is used formaterial heat, or whether flagrant, in English, ever signifies thesame with burning; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words, which are therefore set first, though without examples, that thefigurative senses may be commodiously deduced. 

Such is the exuberance of signification which many words haveobtained, that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses;sometimes the meaning of derivatives must be sought in the motherterm, and sometimes deficient explanations of the primitive maybe supplied in the train of derivation. In any case of doubt ordifficulty, it will be always proper to examine all the words ofthe same race; for some words are slightly passed over to avoidrepetition, some admitted easier and clearer explanation thanothers, and all will be better understood, as they are consideredin greater variety of structures and relations. 

All the interpretations of words are not written with the sameskill, or the same happiness: things equally easy in themselves, are not all equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of along work commits errours, where there appears neither ambiguityto mislead, nor obscurity to confound him; and in a search likethis, many felicities of expression will be casually overlooked, many convenient parallels will be forgotten, and many particularswill admit improvement from a mind utterly unequal to the wholeperformance. 

But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature ofthe undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus someexplanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as hind, thefemale of the stag; stag, the male of the hind: sometimes easier wordsare changed into harder, as burial into sepulture or interment, drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity or aridity, fitinto paroxysm; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can neverbe translated into one more easy. But easiness and difficulty aremerely relative, and if the present prevalence of our languageshould invite foreigners to this dictionary, many will be assistedby those words which now seem only to increase or produce obscurity. For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a Teutonickand Roman interpretation, as to cheer, to gladden, or exhilarate, that every learner of English may be assisted by his own tongue. 

The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects, must be sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses ofeach word, and ranged according to the time of their authours. 

When first I collected these authorities, I was desirous that everyquotation should be useful to some other end than the illustrationof a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles ofscience; from historians remarkable facts; from chymists completeprocesses; from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautifuldescriptions. Such is design, while it is yet at a distance fromexecution. When the time called upon me to range this accumulationof elegance and wisdom into an alphabetical series, I soon discoveredthat the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and wasforced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing oruseful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very oftento clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thusto the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexationof expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relievethe labour of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure andflowers the dusty desarts of barren philology. 

The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be considered asconveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authours; the wordfor the sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendantclauses, has been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen, by hasty detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentencemay be changed: the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopherhis system. 

Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were nevermentioned as masters of elegance or models of stile; but wordsmust be sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminentfor purity, can terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Manyquotations serve no other purpose, than that of proving the bareexistence of words, and are therefore selected with less scrupulousnessthan those which are to teach their structures and relations. 

My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authours, that Imight not be misled by partiality, and that none of my cotemporariesmight have reason to complain; nor have I departed from thisresolution, but when some performance of uncommon excellence excitedmy veneration, when my memory supplied me, from late books, withan example that was wanting, or when my heart, in the tendernessof friendship, solicited admission for a favourite name. 

So far have I been from any care to grace my pages with moderndecorations, that I have studiously endeavoured to collect examplesand authorities from the writers before the restoration, whose worksI regard as the wells of English undefiled, as the pure sources ofgenuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by theconcurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its originalTeutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure andphraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recal it, by making our ancient volumes the ground-work of stile, admittingamong the additions of later times, only such as may supply realdeficiencies, such as are readily adopted by the genius of ourtongue, and incorporate easily with our native idioms. 

But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent toperfection, as well as of false refinement and declension, I havebeen cautious lest my zeal for antiquity might drive me into timestoo remote, and croud my book with words now no longer understood. I have fixed Sidney's work for the boundary, beyond which I make fewexcursions. From the authours which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use andelegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hookerand the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledgefrom Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh;the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and thediction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost tomankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed. 

It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combinedas that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenourof the sentence; such passages I have therefore chosen, and whenit happened that any authour gave a definition of a term, or suchan explanation as is equivalent to a definition, I have placedhis authority as a supplement to my own, without regard to thechronological order, that is otherwise observed. 

Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they arecommonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primitivesby regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom occurringin books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the existence. 

There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucityof examples; authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumulatedwithout necessity or use, and perhaps some will be found, whichmight, without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kindis not hastily to be charged with superfluities: those quotations, which to careless or unskilful perusers appear only to repeatthe same sense, will often exhibit, to a more accurate examiner, diversities of signification, or, at least, afford different shadesof the same meaning: one will shew the word applied to persons, another to things; one will express an ill, another a good, and athird a neutral sense; one will prove the expression genuine froman ancient authour; another will shew it elegant from a modern: adoubtful authority is corroborated by another of more credit; anambiguous sentence is ascertained by a passage clear and determinate;the word, how often soever repeated, appears with new associatesand in different combinations, and every quotation contributessomething to the stability or enlargement of the language. 

When words are used equivocally, I receive them in either sense; whenthey are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive acceptation. 

I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation ofexhibiting a genealogy of sentiments, by shewing how one authourcopied the thoughts and diction of another: such quotations areindeed little more than repetitions, which might justly be censured, did they not gratify the mind, by affording a kind of intellectualhistory. 

The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples havebeen carefully noted; the licence or negligence with which manywords have been hitherto used, has made our stile capricious andindeterminate; when the different combinations of the same word areexhibited together, the preference is readily given to propriety, and I have often endeavoured to direct the choice. 

Thus have I laboured by settling the orthography, displaying theanalogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the significationof English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer:but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my ownexpectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attentionit may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthographywhich I recommend is still controvertible, the etymology which Iadopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous; the explanationsare sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes too much diffused, the significations are distinguished rather with subtilty thanskill, and the attention is harrassed with unnecessary minuteness. 

The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhapssometimes, I hope very rarely, alleged in a mistaken sense; for inmaking this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a stateof disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposedto supply at the review what was left incomplete in the firsttranscription. 

Many terms appropriated to particular occupations, though necessaryand significant, are undoubtedly omitted; and of the words moststudiously considered and exemplified, many senses have escapedobservation. 

Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation andapology. To have attempted much is always laudable, even when theenterprize is above the strength that undertakes it: To rest belowhis own aim is incident to every one whose fancy is active, andwhose views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himselfbecause he has done much, but because he can conceive little. Whenfirst I engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither wordsnor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of thehours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, with theobscure recesses of northern learning, which I should enter andransack; the treasures with which I expected every search into thoseneglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with which Ishould display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus enquiredinto the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attentionto things; to pierce deep into every science, to enquire the natureof every substance of which I inserted the name, to limit every ideaby a definition strictly logical, and exhibit every production ofart or nature in an accurate description, that my book might be inplace of all other dictionaries whether appellative or technical. But these were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wakea lexicographer. I soon found that it is too late to look forinstruments, when the work calls for execution, and that whateverabilities I had brought to my task, with those I must finallyperform it. To deliberate whenever I doubted, to enquire wheneverI was ignorant, would have protracted the undertaking without end, and, perhaps, without much improvement; for I did not find by myfirst experiments, that that I had not of my own was easily to beobtained: I saw that one enquiry only gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed; and that thus to persueperfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia, to chacethe sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed torest, was still beheld at the same distance from them. 

I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, andno longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more incumbrancethan assistance: by this I obtained at least one advantage, thatI set limits to my work, which would in time be ended, though notcompleted. 

Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me tonegligence; some faults will at last appear to be the effects ofanxious diligence and persevering activity. The nice and subtleramifications of meaning were not easily avoided by a mind intentupon accuracy, and convinced of the necessity of disentanglingcombinations, and separating similitudes. Many of the distinctionswhich to common readers appear useless and idle, will be foundreal and important by men versed in the school philosophy, withoutwhich no dictionary shall ever be accurately compiled, or skilfullyexamined. Some senses however there are, which, though not the same, are yet so nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most menthink indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness; andconsequently some examples might be indifferently put to eithersignification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who donot form, but register the language; who do not teach men how theyshould think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed theirthoughts. 

The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could notremedy, and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passagesselected with propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shiningwith sparks of imagination, and some replete with treasures ofwisdom. 

The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not imperfectfor want of care, but because care will not always be successful, and recollection or information come too late for use. 

That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be franklyacknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that itwas unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner'slanguage, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect ofnavigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops ofartificers, to gain the names of wares, tools and operations, ofwhich no mention is found in books; what favourable accident, oreasy enquiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; butit had been a hopeless labour to glean up words, by courting livinginformation, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and theroughness of another. 

To furnish the academicians della Crusca with words of this kind, a series of comedies called la Fiera, or the Fair, was professedlywritten by Buonaroti; but I had no such assistant, and thereforewas content to want what they must have wanted likewise, had theynot luckily been so supplied. 

Nor are all words which are not found in the vocabulary, to belamented as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of thepeople, the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; manyof their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current at certain times and places, are in othersutterly unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in a state ofincrease or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durablematerials of a language, and therefore must be suffered to perishwith other things unworthy of preservation. 

Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He thatis catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those topass by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that issearching for rare and remote things, will neglect those that areobvious and familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory wordshave been inserted with little illustration, because in gatheringthe authorities, I forbore to copy those which I thought likely tooccur whenever they were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewingmy collection, I found the word sea unexemplified. 

Thus it happens, that in things difficult there is danger fromignorance, and in things easy from confidence; the mind, afraid ofgreatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herselffrom painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasksnot adequate to her powers, sometimes too secure for caution, andagain too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plainpath, and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated bydifferent intentions. 

A large work is difficult because it is large, even though allits parts might singly be performed with facility; where there aremany things to be done, each must be allowed its share of time andlabour, in the proportion only which it bears to the whole; nor canit be expected, that the stones which form the dome of a temple, should be squared and polished like the diamond of a ring. 

Of the event of this work, for which, having laboured it with somuch application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness, it is natural to form conjectures. Those who have been persuadedto think well of my design, will require that it should fix ourlanguage, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chancehave hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself fora while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectationwhich neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see mengrow old and die at a certain time one after another, from centuryto century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong lifeto a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographerbe derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation thathas preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imaginethat his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it fromcorruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunarynature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, andaffectation. 

With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guardthe avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulseintruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto beenvain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; toenchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakingsof pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. TheFrench language has visibly changed under the inspection of theacademy; the stile of Amelot's translation of Father Paul is observedby Le Courayer to be un peu passe; and no Italian will maintainthat the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly differentfrom that of Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro. 

Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen; conquestsand migrations are now very rare: but there are other causes ofchange, which, though slow in their operation, and invisible intheir progress, are perhaps as much superiour to human resistance, as the revolutions of the sky, or intumescence of the tide. Commerce, however necessary, however lucrative, as it depraves the manners, corrupts the language; they that have frequent intercourse withstrangers, to whom they endeavour to accommodate themselves, mustin time learn a mingled dialect, like the jargon which serves thetraffickers on the Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will notalways be confined to the exchange, the warehouse, or the port, but will be communicated by degrees to other ranks of the people, and be at last incorporated with the current speech. 

There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The languagemost likely to continue long without alteration, would be that ofa nation raised a little, and but a little above barbarity, secludedfrom strangers, and totally employed in procuring the convenienciesof life; either without books, or, like some of the Mahometancountries, with very few: men thus busied and unlearned, having onlysuch words as common use requires, would perhaps long continue toexpress the same notions by the same signs. But no such constancycan be expected in a people polished by arts, and classed bysubordination, where one part of the community is sustained andaccommodated by the labour of the other. Those who have much leisureto think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and everyincrease of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce newwords, or combinations of words. When the mind is unchained fromnecessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left atlarge in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as anycustom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it;as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the sameproportion as it alters practice. 

As by the cultivation of various sciences, a language is amplified, it will be more furnished with words deflected from original sense;the geometrician will talk of a courtier's zenith, or the excentrickvirtue of a wild hero, and the physician of sanguine expectationsand phlegmatick delays. Copiousness of speech will give opportunitiesto capricious choice, by which some words will be preferred, and others degraded; vicissitudes of fashion will enforce the useof new, or extend the signification of known terms. The tropes ofpoetry will make hourly encroachments, and the metaphorical willbecome the current sense: pronunciation will be varied by levityor ignorance, and the pen must at length comply with the tongue;illiterate writers will at one time or other, by publick infatuation, rise into renown, who, not knowing the original import of words, will use them with colloquial licentiousness, confound distinction, and forget propriety. As politeness increases, some expressions willbe considered as too gross and vulgar for the delicate, others astoo formal and ceremonious for the gay and airy; new phrases aretherefore adopted, which must, for the same reasons, be in timedismissed. Swift, in his petty treatise on the English language, allows that new words must sometimes be introduced, but proposesthat none should be suffered to become obsolete. But what makesa word obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? andhow shall it be continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, orrecalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once becomeunfamiliar by disuse, and unpleasing by unfamiliarity?

There is another cause of alteration more prevalent than any other, which yet in the present state of the world cannot be obviated. Amixture of two languages will produce a third distinct from both, and they will always be mixed, where the chief part of education, and the most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient orin foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its words and combinations croud upon his memory; and hasteand negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowedterms and exotick expressions. 

The great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No bookwas ever turned from one language into another, without impartingsomething of its native idiom; this is the most mischievous andcomprehensive innovation; single words may enter by thousands, andthe fabrick of the tongue continue the same, but new phraseologychanges much at once; it alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the columns. If an academy should be establishedfor the cultivation of our stile, which I, who can never wish tosee dependance multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty willhinder or destroy, let them, instead of compiling grammars anddictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, to stop thelicence of translatours, whose idleness and ignorance, if it besuffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France. 

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains butto acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distressesof humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, thatwe palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preservedour constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. 

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbidsto be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palmof philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authours: whetherI shall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation ofEnglish literature, must be left to time: much of my life has beenlost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away;and much has always been spent in provision for the day that waspassing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless orignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand theteachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositoriesof science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, andto Boyle. 

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit ofa man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately becomepopular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, andrisible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity wasever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and hardenignorance in contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert; whowill consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can beperfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words arebudding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spentupon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not besufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language canexpress, must often speak of what he does not understand; thata writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, andsometimes faint with weariness under a task, which Scaliger comparesto the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious isnot always known, and what is known is not always present; that suddenfits of inadvertency will surprize vigilance, slight avocationswill seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darkenlearning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memoryat the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitivereadiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts tomorrow. 

In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, letit not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and thoughno book was ever spared out of tenderness to the authour, and theworld is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults ofthat which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance ofthe learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in thesoft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academickbowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness andin sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism toobserve, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I haveonly failed in an attempt which no human powers have hithertocompleted. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successiveages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, andco-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not securethem from the censure of Beni; if the embodied criticks of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged tochange its oeconomy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what would it availme? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished toplease have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage areempty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise. 

THE END