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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language
+by Samuel Johnson
+(#9 in our series by Samuel Johnson)
+
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+Title: Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language
+
+Author: Samuel Johnson
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5430]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 18, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PREFACE TO A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+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 the
+prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise;
+to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where
+success would have been without applause, and diligence without
+reward.
+
+Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom
+mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science,
+the pionier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear
+obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press
+forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the
+humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour
+may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape
+reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted
+to very few.
+
+I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary
+of the English language, which, while it was employed in the
+cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto
+neglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into
+wild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; and
+exposed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation.
+
+When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech
+copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever
+I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and
+confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless
+variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations
+were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes
+of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of
+any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority.
+
+Having therefore no assistance but from general grammar, I applied
+myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might be
+of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated
+in time the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I reduced
+to 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; and
+analogy, which, though in some words obscure, was evident in others.
+
+In adjusting the ORTHOGRAPHY, which has been to this time unsettled
+and fortuitous, I found it necessary to distinguish those irregularities
+that are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, from
+others which the ignorance or negligence of later writers has
+produced. Every language has its anomalies, which, though inconvenient,
+and in themselves once unnecessary, must be tolerated among the
+imperfections of human things, and which require only to be registered,
+that they may not be increased, and ascertained, that they may not
+be confounded: but every language has likewise its improprieties and
+absurdities, which it is the duty of the lexicographer to correct
+or proscribe.
+
+As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of necessary
+or common use were spoken before they were written; and while they
+were unfixed by any visible signs, must have been spoken with great
+diversity, as we now observe those who cannot read catch sounds
+imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarous
+jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavoured
+to express, as he could, the sounds which he was accustomed to
+pronounce or to receive, and vitiated in writing such words as were
+already vitiated in speech. The powers of the letters, when they
+were applied to a new language, must have been vague and unsettled,
+and therefore different hands would exhibit the same sound by
+different combinations.
+
+From this uncertain pronunciation arise in a great part the various
+dialects of the same country, which will always be observed to
+grow fewer, and less different, as books are multiplied; and from
+this arbitrary representation of sounds by letters, proceeds that
+diversity of spelling observable in the Saxon remains, and I suppose
+in the first books of every nation, which perplexes or destroys
+analogy, and produces anomalous formations, that, being once
+incorporated, can never be afterward dismissed or reformed.
+
+Of this kind are the derivatives length from long, strength from
+strong, darling from dear, breadth from broad, from dry, drought,
+and from high, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writes
+highth; Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una [Horace,
+Epistles, II. ii. 212]; to change all would be too much, and to
+change one is nothing.
+
+This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are so
+capriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accident
+or affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth,
+that to them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard is
+to be shewn in the deduction of one language from another.
+
+Such defects are not errours in orthography, but spots of barbarity
+impressed so deep in the English language, that criticism can
+never wash them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain
+untouched; but many words have likewise been altered by accident,
+or depraved by ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been
+weakly followed; and some still continue to be variously written,
+as authours differ in their care or skill: of these it was proper
+to enquire the true orthography, which I have always considered
+as depending on their derivation, and have therefore referred them
+to their original languages: thus I write enchant, enchantment,
+enchanter, after the French and incantation after the Latin; thus
+entire is chosen rather than intire, because it passed to us not
+from the Latin integer, but from the French entier.
+
+Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately
+received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we
+had dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It
+is, however, my opinion, that the French generally supplied us; for
+we have few Latin words, among the terms of domestick use, which
+are not French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin.
+
+Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been
+often obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in
+compliance with a numberless majority, convey and inveigh, deceit
+and receipt, fancy and phantom; sometimes the derivative varies
+from the primitive, as explain and explanation, repeat and repetition.
+
+Some combinations of letters having the same power are used
+indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in
+choak, choke; soap, sope; jewel, fuel, and many others; which I
+have sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them under
+either form, may not search in vain.
+
+In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of
+spelling by which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary,
+is to be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not often
+rashly, the preference. I have left, in the examples, to every
+authour his own practice unmolested, that the reader may balance
+suffrages, and judge between us: but this question is not always
+to be determined by reputed or by real learning; some men, intent
+upon greater things, have thought little on sounds and derivations;
+some, knowing in the ancient tongues, have neglected those in which
+our words are commonly to be sought. Thus Hammond writes fecibleness
+for feasibleness, because I suppose he imagined it derived immediately
+from the Latin; and some words, such as dependant, dependent,
+dependance, dependence, vary their final syllable, as one or another
+language is present to the writer.
+
+In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without
+controul, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have
+endeavoured to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity,
+and a grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I have
+attempted few alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greater
+part is from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I may
+be allowed to recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhaps
+employed too anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb,
+upon narrow views, or for minute propriety, the orthography of
+their fathers. It has been asserted, that for the law to be KNOWN,
+is of more importance than to be RIGHT. Change, says Hooker, is
+not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. There is
+in constancy and stability a general and lasting advantage, which
+will always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction.
+Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions
+of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or
+place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, which
+will again be changed, while imitation is employed in observing
+them.
+
+This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not proceed
+from an opinion, that particular combinations of letters have much
+influence on human happiness; or that truth may not be successfully
+taught by modes of spelling fanciful And erroneous: I am not yet so
+lost in lexicography, as to I forget that WORDS ARE THE DAUGHTERS
+OF EARTH, AND THAT THINGS ARE THE SONS OF HEAVEN.  Language is only
+the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I
+wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and
+that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
+
+In settling the orthography, I have not wholly neglected the
+pronunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent upon
+the acute or elevated syllable. It will sometimes be found, that
+the accent is placed by the authour quoted, on a different syllable
+from that marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to be
+understood, that custom has varied, or that the authour has, in
+my opinion, pronounced wrong. Short directions are sometimes given
+where the sound of letters is irregular; and if they are sometimes
+omitted, defect in such minute observations will be more easily
+excused, than superfluity.
+
+In the investigation both of the orthography and signification of
+words, their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they
+were therefore to be divided into primitives and derivatives.
+A primitive word, is that which can be traced no further to any
+English root; thus circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude,
+concave and complicate, though compounds in the Latin, are to us
+primitives. Derivatives are all those that can be referred to any
+word in English of greater simplicity.
+
+The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with an
+accuracy sometimes needless; for who does not see that remoteness
+comes from remote, lovely from love, concavity from concave, and
+demonstrative from demonstrate? but this grammatical exuberance
+the scheme of my work did not allow me to repress. It is of great
+importance in examining the general fabrick of a language, to trace
+one word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation and
+inflection; 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 elucidate
+the anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in
+the Teutonick dialects are very frequent, and though familiar to
+those who have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learners
+of our language.
+
+The two languages from which our primitives have been derived are
+the Roman and Teutonick: under the Roman I comprehend the French
+and provincial tongues; and under the Teutonick range the Saxon,
+German, and all their kindred dialects. Most of our polysyllables
+are Roman, and our words of one syllable are very often Teutonick.
+
+In assigning the Roman original, it has perhaps sometimes happened
+that I have mentioned only the Latin, when the word was borrowed
+from the French, and considering myself as employed only in the
+illustration of my own language, I have not been very careful to
+observe whether the Latin word be pure or barbarous, or the French
+elegant or obsolete.
+
+For the Teutonick etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius
+and Skinner, the only names which I have forborn to quote when I
+copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labours or
+usurp their honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition
+by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention
+but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius
+appears to have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner in
+rectitude of understanding. Junius was accurately skilled in all
+the northern languages. Skinner probably examined the ancient and
+remoter dialects only by occasional inspection into dictionaries;
+but the learning of Junius is often of no other use than to show
+him a track by which he may deviate from his purpose, to which
+Skinner always presses forward by the shortest way.  Skinner
+is often ignorant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of
+knowledge; but his variety distracts his judgment, and his learning
+is very frequently disgraced by his absurdities.
+
+The votaries of the northern muses will not perhaps easily restrain
+their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded
+by a disadvantageous comparison; but whatever reverence is due to
+his diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of
+censoriousness 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, single
+or solitary, who considers that grief naturally loves to be alone.
+[Footnote: That I may not appear to have spoken too irreverently of
+Junius, I have here subjoined a few Specimens of his etymological
+extravagance.
+
+BANISH. religare, ex banno vel territorio exigere, in exilium
+agere. G. bannir. It. bandire, bandeggiare. H. bandir. B. bannen.
+AEvi medii s criptores bannire dicebant. V. Spelm. in Bannum & in
+Banleuga. Quoniam vero regionum urbiumq; limites arduis plerumq;
+montibus, altis fluminibus, longis deniq; flexuosisq; angustissimarum
+viarum anfractibus includebantur, fieri potest id genus limites ban
+did ab eo quod [word in Greek] & [word in Greek] Tarentinis olim,
+sicuti tradit Hesychius, vocabantur [words in Greek], "obliquae
+ac minime in rectum tendentes viae." Ac fortasse quoque huc facit
+quod [word in Greek], eodem Hesychio teste, dicebant [words in
+greek] montes arduos.
+
+EMPTY, emtie, vacuus, inanis. A. S. AEmtiz. Nescio an sint ab [word
+in Greek] vel [word in Greek]. Vomo, evomo, vomitu evacuo.  Videtur
+interim etymologiam hanc non obscure firmare codex Rush.  Mat. xii.
+22. ubi antique scriptum invenimus [unknown language].  "Invenit
+cam vacantem."
+
+HILL, mons, collis. A. S. hyll. Quod videri potest abscissum
+ex [word in Greek] vel [word in Greek]. Collis, tumulus, locus in
+plano editior. Hom. II. b. v. 811, [words in Greek]. Ubi authori
+brevium 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 impedite
+loquentes libentissime garrire soleant; vel quod aliis nimii semper
+videantur, etiam parcissime loquentes.]
+
+Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty, that of
+words undoubtedly Teutonick the original is not always to be found
+in any ancient language; and I have therefore inserted Dutch or
+German 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 descent
+or cognation, do not always agree in sense; for it is incident to
+words, as to their authours, to degenerate from their ancestors,
+and to change their manners when they change their country. It is
+sufficient, in etymological enquiries, if the senses of kindred
+words be found such as may easily pass into each other, or such as
+may both be referred to one general idea.
+
+The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the
+volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered; and,
+by proper attention to the rules of derivation, the orthography was
+soon adjusted. But to COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task
+of greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately
+apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must
+be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and
+gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the
+boundless chaos of a living speech. My search, however, has been
+either skilful or lucky; for I have much augmented the vocabulary.
+
+As my design was a dictionary, common or appellative, I have omitted
+all words which have relation to proper names; such as Arian,
+Socinian, Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometan; but have retained
+those of a more general nature, as Heathen, Pagan.
+
+Of the terms of art I have received such as could be found either
+in books of science or technical dictionaries; and have often
+inserted, from philosophical writers, words which are supported
+perhaps only by a single authority, and which being not admitted
+into general use, stand yet as candidates or probationers, and must
+depend for their adoption on the suffrage of futurity.
+
+The words which our authours have introduced by their knowledge
+of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or
+wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I
+have registred as they occurred, though commonly only to censure
+them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless
+foreigners to the injury of the natives.
+
+I have not rejected any by design, merely because they were unnecessary
+or exuberant; but have received those which by different writers
+have been differently formed, as viscid, and viscidity, viscous,
+and viscosity.
+
+Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when they
+obtain a signification different from that which the components have
+in their simple state. Thus highwayman, woodman, and horsecourser,
+require an explanation; but of thieflike or coachdriver no notice
+was needed, because the primitives contain the meaning of the
+compounds.
+
+Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, like
+diminutive 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, when
+I had no authority that invited me to insert them; not that they are
+not genuine and regular offsprings of English roots, but because
+their relation to the primitive being always the same, their
+signification 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 to
+illustrate the sense of the verb, except when they signify things as
+well 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 rather
+habit or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives;
+as a thinking man, a man of prudence; a pacing horse, a horse that
+can pace: these I have ventured to call participial adjectives.
+But neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly
+to be understood, without any danger of mistake, by consulting the
+verb.
+
+Obsolete words are admitted, when they are found in authours not
+obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve
+revival.
+
+As composition is one of the chief characteristicks of a language,
+I have endeavoured to make some reparation for the universal negligence
+of 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 and
+curiosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language and
+modes of our combination amply discovered.
+
+Of some forms of composition, such as that by which re is prefixed
+to note repetition, and un to signify contrariety or privation,
+all the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use of these
+particles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited, that
+they are hourly affixed to new words as occasion requires, or is
+imagined to require them.
+
+There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language
+than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners the
+greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by
+a particle subjoined; as to come off, to escape by a fetch; to fall
+on, to attack; to fall off, to apostatize; to break off, to stop
+abruptly; to bear out, to justify; to fall in, to comply; to give
+over, to cease; to set off, to embellish; to set in, to begin
+a continual tenour; to set out, to begin a course or journey; to
+take off, to copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind,
+of which some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from
+the sense of the simple words, that no sagacity will be able to
+trace the steps by which they arrived at the present use. These
+I have noted with great care; and though I cannot flatter myself
+that the collection is complete, I believe I have so far assisted
+the students of our language, that this kind of phraseology will be
+no longer insuperable; and the combinations of verbs and particles,
+by chance omitted, will be easily explained by comparison with
+those that may be found.
+
+Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth,
+Philips, or the contracted Dict. for Dictionaries subjoined; of
+these I am not always certain that they are read in any book but
+the works of lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, because
+I had never read them; and many I have inserted, because they may
+perhaps exist, though they have escaped my notice: they are, however,
+to be yet considered as resting only upon the credit of former
+dictionaries. Others, which I considered as useful, or know to be
+proper, though I could not at present support them by authorities,
+I have suffered to stand upon my own attestation, claiming the same
+privilege with my predecessors of being sometimes credited without
+proof.
+
+The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered;
+they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced, when
+they are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations;
+and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or striking
+importance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation
+of our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by English
+grammarians.
+
+That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently
+to fasten, is the explanation; in which I cannot hope to satisfy
+those, who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I have
+not always been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a language
+by itself is very difficult; many words cannot be explained by
+synonimes, because the idea signified by them has not more than
+one appellation; nor by paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot
+be described. When the nature of things is unknown, or the notion
+unsettled and indefinite, and various in various minds, the words by
+which such notions are conveyed, or such things denoted, will be
+ambiguous 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 happily
+illustrated. To explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse
+than that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot always
+be found; for as nothing can be proved but by supposing something
+intuitively known, and evident without proof, so nothing can be
+defined but by the use of words too plain to admit a definition.
+
+Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtle and evanescent
+to be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those which are by the
+grammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are suffered
+to pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse,
+or to modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living
+tongues to have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as
+no other form of expression can convey.
+
+My labour has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too
+frequent in the English language, of which the signification is
+so loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the
+senses detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard
+to trace them through the maze of variation, to catch them on the
+brink of utter inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, or
+interpret them by any words of distinct and settled meaning; such
+are bear, break, come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go,
+run, make, take, turn, throw. If of these the whole power is not
+accurately delivered, it must be remembered, that while our language
+is yet living, and variable by the caprice of every one that speaks
+it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and can no more
+be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of
+a 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 of
+explication: this difficulty is not less, nor perhaps greater, in
+English, 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 to
+perform.
+
+Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do not
+understand them; these might have been omitted very often with
+little inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity as
+to decline this confession: for when Tully owns himself ignorant
+whether 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, without
+shame, leave some obscurities to happier industry, or future
+information.
+
+The rigour of interpretative lexicography requires that the
+explanation, and the word explained, should always be reciprocal;
+this I have always endeavoured, but could not always attain. Words
+are 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 then
+necessary to use the proximate word, for the deficiency of single
+terms can very seldom be supplied by circumlocution; nor is the
+inconvenience great of such mutilated interpretations, because the
+sense may easily be collected entire from the examples.
+
+In every word of extensive use, it was requisite to mark the progress
+of its meaning, and show by what gradations of intermediate sense
+it has passed from its primitive to its remote and accidental
+signification; so that every foregoing explanation should tend to
+that which follows, and the series be regularly concatenated from
+the first notion to the last.
+
+This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses may
+be so interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, nor
+any 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 nature
+collateral? The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly into
+each other; so that though on one side they apparently differ, yet
+it is impossible to mark the point of contact. Ideas of the same
+race, though not exactly alike, are sometimes so little different,
+that no words can express the dissimilitude, though the mind easily
+perceives it, when they are exhibited together; and sometimes there
+is such a confusion of acceptations, that discernment is wearied,
+and distinction puzzled, and perseverance herself hurries to an
+end, by crouding together what she cannot separate.
+
+These complaints of difficulty will, by those that have never
+considered words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargon
+of a man willing to magnify his labours, and procure veneration to
+his studies by involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure
+to those that have not learned it: this uncertainty of terms,
+and commixture of ideas, is well known to those who have joined
+philosophy with grammar; and if I have not expressed them very
+clearly, it must be remembered that I am speaking of that which
+words are insufficient to explain.
+
+The original sense of words is often driven out of use by their
+metaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake of
+a regular origination. Thus I know not whether ardour is used for
+material heat, or whether flagrant, in English, ever signifies the
+same with burning; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words,
+which are therefore set first, though without examples, that the
+figurative senses may be commodiously deduced.
+
+Such is the exuberance of signification which many words have
+obtained, that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses;
+sometimes the meaning of derivatives must be sought in the mother
+term, and sometimes deficient explanations of the primitive may
+be supplied in the train of derivation. In any case of doubt or
+difficulty, it will be always proper to examine all the words of
+the same race; for some words are slightly passed over to avoid
+repetition, some admitted easier and clearer explanation than
+others, and all will be better understood, as they are considered
+in greater variety of structures and relations.
+
+All the interpretations of words are not written with the same
+skill, or the same happiness: things equally easy in themselves,
+are not all equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a
+long work commits errours, where there appears neither ambiguity
+to mislead, nor obscurity to confound him; and in a search like
+this, many felicities of expression will be casually overlooked,
+many convenient parallels will be forgotten, and many particulars
+will admit improvement from a mind utterly unequal to the whole
+performance.
+
+But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of
+the undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus some
+explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as hind, the
+female of the stag; stag, the male of the hind: sometimes easier words
+are changed into harder, as burial into sepulture or interment,
+drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity or aridity, fit
+into paroxysm; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can never
+be translated into one more easy. But easiness and difficulty are
+merely relative, and if the present prevalence of our language
+should invite foreigners to this dictionary, many will be assisted
+by those words which now seem only to increase or produce obscurity.
+For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a Teutonick
+and 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 of
+each word, and ranged according to the time of their authours.
+
+When first I collected these authorities, I was desirous that every
+quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration
+of a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of
+science; from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete
+processes; from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful
+descriptions. Such is design, while it is yet at a distance from
+execution. When the time called upon me to range this accumulation
+of elegance and wisdom into an alphabetical series, I soon discovered
+that the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was
+forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing or
+useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often
+to clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thus
+to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation
+of expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve
+the labour of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and
+flowers the dusty desarts of barren philology.
+
+The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be considered as
+conveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authours; the word
+for the sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendant
+clauses, has been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen,
+by hasty detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentence
+may be changed: the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopher
+his system.
+
+Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were never
+mentioned as masters of elegance or models of stile; but words
+must be sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminent
+for purity, can terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Many
+quotations serve no other purpose, than that of proving the bare
+existence of words, and are therefore selected with less scrupulousness
+than those which are to teach their structures and relations.
+
+My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authours, that I
+might not be misled by partiality, and that none of my cotemporaries
+might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this
+resolution, but when some performance of uncommon excellence excited
+my veneration, when my memory supplied me, from late books, with
+an example that was wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness
+of friendship, solicited admission for a favourite name.
+
+So far have I been from any care to grace my pages with modern
+decorations, that I have studiously endeavoured to collect examples
+and authorities from the writers before the restoration, whose works
+I regard as the wells of English undefiled, as the pure sources of
+genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the
+concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original
+Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and
+phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recal it,
+by making our ancient volumes the ground-work of stile, admitting
+among the additions of later times, only such as may supply real
+deficiencies, such as are readily adopted by the genius of our
+tongue, and incorporate easily with our native idioms.
+
+But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to
+perfection, as well as of false refinement and declension, I have
+been cautious lest my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times
+too remote, and croud my book with words now no longer understood.
+I have fixed Sidney's work for the boundary, beyond which I make few
+excursions. From the authours which rose in the time of Elizabeth,
+a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and
+elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker
+and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge
+from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh;
+the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the
+diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to
+mankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed.
+
+It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined
+as that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenour
+of the sentence; such passages I have therefore chosen, and when
+it happened that any authour gave a definition of a term, or such
+an explanation as is equivalent to a definition, I have placed
+his authority as a supplement to my own, without regard to the
+chronological order, that is otherwise observed.
+
+Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they are
+commonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primitives
+by regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom occurring
+in books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the existence.
+
+There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucity
+of examples; authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumulated
+without necessity or use, and perhaps some will be found, which
+might, without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kind
+is not hastily to be charged with superfluities: those quotations,
+which to careless or unskilful perusers appear only to repeat
+the same sense, will often exhibit, to a more accurate examiner,
+diversities of signification, or, at least, afford different shades
+of the same meaning: one will shew the word applied to persons,
+another to things; one will express an ill, another a good, and a
+third a neutral sense; one will prove the expression genuine from
+an ancient authour; another will shew it elegant from a modern: a
+doubtful authority is corroborated by another of more credit; an
+ambiguous sentence is ascertained by a passage clear and determinate;
+the word, how often soever repeated, appears with new associates
+and in different combinations, and every quotation contributes
+something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
+
+When words are used equivocally, I receive them in either sense; when
+they are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive acceptation.
+
+I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation of
+exhibiting a genealogy of sentiments, by shewing how one authour
+copied the thoughts and diction of another: such quotations are
+indeed little more than repetitions, which might justly be censured,
+did they not gratify the mind, by affording a kind of intellectual
+history.
+
+The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples have
+been carefully noted; the licence or negligence with which many
+words have been hitherto used, has made our stile capricious and
+indeterminate; when the different combinations of the same word are
+exhibited 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 the
+analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification
+of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer:
+but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own
+expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attention
+it may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthography
+which I recommend is still controvertible, the etymology which I
+adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous; the explanations
+are sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes too much diffused,
+the significations are distinguished rather with subtilty than
+skill, and the attention is harrassed with unnecessary minuteness.
+
+The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhaps
+sometimes, I hope very rarely, alleged in a mistaken sense; for in
+making this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a state
+of disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposed
+to supply at the review what was left incomplete in the first
+transcription.
+
+Many terms appropriated to particular occupations, though necessary
+and significant, are undoubtedly omitted; and of the words most
+studiously considered and exemplified, many senses have escaped
+observation.
+
+Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and
+apology. To have attempted much is always laudable, even when the
+enterprize is above the strength that undertakes it: To rest below
+his own aim is incident to every one whose fancy is active, and
+whose views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself
+because he has done much, but because he can conceive little. When
+first I engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither words
+nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the
+hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, with the
+obscure recesses of northern learning, which I should enter and
+ransack; the treasures with which I expected every search into those
+neglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with which I
+should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus enquired
+into the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention
+to things; to pierce deep into every science, to enquire the nature
+of every substance of which I inserted the name, to limit every idea
+by a definition strictly logical, and exhibit every production of
+art or nature in an accurate description, that my book might be in
+place of all other dictionaries whether appellative or technical.
+But these were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake
+a lexicographer.  I soon found that it is too late to look for
+instruments, when the work calls for execution, and that whatever
+abilities I had brought to my task, with those I must finally
+perform it. To deliberate whenever I doubted, to enquire whenever
+I was ignorant, would have protracted the undertaking without end,
+and, perhaps, without much improvement; for I did not find by my
+first experiments, that that I had not of my own was easily to be
+obtained: 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 persue
+perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia, to chace
+the sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed to
+rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them.
+
+I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and
+no longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more incumbrance
+than assistance: by this I obtained at least one advantage, that
+I set limits to my work, which would in time be ended, though not
+completed.
+
+Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to
+negligence; some faults will at last appear to be the effects of
+anxious diligence and persevering activity. The nice and subtle
+ramifications of meaning were not easily avoided by a mind intent
+upon accuracy, and convinced of the necessity of disentangling
+combinations, and separating similitudes. Many of the distinctions
+which to common readers appear useless and idle, will be found
+real and important by men versed in the school philosophy, without
+which no dictionary shall ever be accurately compiled, or skilfully
+examined. Some senses however there are, which, though not the same,
+are yet so nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men
+think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness; and
+consequently some examples might be indifferently put to either
+signification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do
+not form, but register the language; who do not teach men how they
+should think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their
+thoughts.
+
+The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not
+remedy, and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages
+selected with propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shining
+with sparks of imagination, and some replete with treasures of
+wisdom.
+
+The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not imperfect
+for 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 frankly
+acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it
+was unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's
+language, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of
+navigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of
+artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools and operations, of
+which no mention is found in books; what favourable accident, or
+easy enquiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; but
+it had been a hopeless labour to glean up words, by courting living
+information, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and the
+roughness of another.
+
+To furnish the academicians della Crusca with words of this kind,
+a series of comedies called la Fiera, or the Fair, was professedly
+written by Buonaroti; but I had no such assistant, and therefore
+was content to want what they must have wanted likewise, had they
+not luckily been so supplied.
+
+Nor are all words which are not found in the vocabulary, to be
+lamented as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of the
+people, the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many
+of their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience,
+and though current at certain times and places, are in others
+utterly unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in a state of
+increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable
+materials of a language, and therefore must be suffered to perish
+with other things unworthy of preservation.
+
+Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that
+is catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to
+pass by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is
+searching for rare and remote things, will neglect those that are
+obvious and familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words
+have been inserted with little illustration, because in gathering
+the authorities, I forbore to copy those which I thought likely to
+occur whenever they were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing
+my collection, I found the word sea unexemplified.
+
+Thus it happens, that in things difficult there is danger from
+ignorance, and in things easy from confidence; the mind, afraid of
+greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself
+from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks
+not adequate to her powers, sometimes too secure for caution, and
+again too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain
+path, and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by
+different intentions.
+
+A large work is difficult because it is large, even though all
+its parts might singly be performed with facility; where there are
+many things to be done, each must be allowed its share of time and
+labour, in the proportion only which it bears to the whole; nor can
+it 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 so
+much application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness,
+it is natural to form conjectures. Those who have been persuaded
+to think well of my design, will require that it should fix our
+language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance
+have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition.
+With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for
+a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation
+which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men
+grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century
+to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life
+to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer
+be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that
+has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine
+that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from
+corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary
+nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and
+affectation.
+
+With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard
+the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse
+intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been
+vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to
+enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings
+of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The
+French language has visibly changed under the inspection of the
+academy; the stile of Amelot's translation of Father Paul is observed
+by Le Courayer to be un peu passe; and no Italian will maintain
+that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different
+from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro.
+
+Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen; conquests
+and migrations are now very rare: but there are other causes of
+change, which, though slow in their operation, and invisible in
+their 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 with
+strangers, to whom they endeavour to accommodate themselves, must
+in time learn a mingled dialect, like the jargon which serves the
+traffickers on the Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will not
+always 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 language
+most likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of
+a nation raised a little, and but a little above barbarity, secluded
+from strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniencies
+of life; either without books, or, like some of the Mahometan
+countries, with very few: men thus busied and unlearned, having only
+such words as common use requires, would perhaps long continue to
+express the same notions by the same signs. But no such constancy
+can be expected in a people polished by arts, and classed by
+subordination, where one part of the community is sustained and
+accommodated by the labour of the other. Those who have much leisure
+to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and every
+increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new
+words, or combinations of words. When the mind is unchained from
+necessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at
+large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any
+custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it;
+as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same
+proportion 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 excentrick
+virtue of a wild hero, and the physician of sanguine expectations
+and phlegmatick delays. Copiousness of speech will give opportunities
+to capricious choice, by which some words will be preferred,
+and others degraded; vicissitudes of fashion will enforce the use
+of new, or extend the signification of known terms. The tropes of
+poetry will make hourly encroachments, and the metaphorical will
+become the current sense: pronunciation will be varied by levity
+or 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 will
+be considered as too gross and vulgar for the delicate, others as
+too formal and ceremonious for the gay and airy; new phrases are
+therefore adopted, which must, for the same reasons, be in time
+dismissed. Swift, in his petty treatise on the English language,
+allows that new words must sometimes be introduced, but proposes
+that none should be suffered to become obsolete. But what makes
+a word obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? and
+how shall it be continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or
+recalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once become
+unfamiliar 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. A
+mixture 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 or
+in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language,
+will find its words and combinations croud upon his memory; and haste
+and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed
+terms and exotick expressions.
+
+The great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No book
+was ever turned from one language into another, without imparting
+something of its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and
+comprehensive innovation; single words may enter by thousands, and
+the fabrick of the tongue continue the same, but new phraseology
+changes much at once; it alters not the single stones of the building,
+but the order of the columns. If an academy should be established
+for the cultivation of our stile, which I, who can never wish to
+see dependance multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty will
+hinder or destroy, let them, instead of compiling grammars and
+dictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, to stop the
+licence of translatours, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be
+suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France.
+
+If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but
+to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses
+of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that
+we 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 preserved
+our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.
+
+In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids
+to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years,
+to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm
+of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent.
+The chief glory of every people arises from its authours: whether
+I shall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of
+English literature, must be left to time: much of my life has been
+lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away;
+and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was
+passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or
+ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations, and distant ages,
+gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the
+teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories
+of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and
+to 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 of
+a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become
+popular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, and
+risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was
+ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden
+ignorance in contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail,
+and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert; who
+will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be
+perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are
+budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent
+upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be
+sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can
+express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that
+a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and
+sometimes faint with weariness under a task, which Scaliger compares
+to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is
+not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden
+fits of inadvertency will surprize vigilance, slight avocations
+will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken
+learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory
+at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive
+readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts tomorrow.
+
+In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let
+it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though
+no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the authour, and the
+world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of
+that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it,
+that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of
+the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the
+soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick
+bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and
+in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to
+observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have
+only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto
+completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed,
+and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive
+ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and
+co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not secure
+them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied criticks of France,
+when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to
+change 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 avail
+me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to
+please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are
+empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity,
+having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
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