Ebook A Dictionary of English Etymology

In the present edition, the original text is printed entire, with no change but the correction of perhaps half a dozen errors of the press and the trans fer of the articles composing the Appendix to their proper places in the alphabet. My additions consist of notes upon a considerable number of words, a list of which is given at the end of this preface. These notes are inclosed in brackets and signed with the initial M. My observations, as will be seen, are confined almost wholly to historical derivation, and I have attempted little in the way of conjectural deduction from imitative sounds, from the supposed natural significance of primary consonantal combinations, or from the analogies of ancient and remote languages not' actually known to have contributed directly to the composition of the English vocabulary. This course has been imposed upon me as well by necessity as by choice. I will not indeed affect to say, with Capgrave, that I want ny al that schuld longe to a studier.