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Samuel Johnson >> Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language
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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,
dependence, 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.