Ebook English Synonyms Discriminated

The earliest regular treatise of the moderns, exclusively consecrated to the comparison of vernacular synonyms, seems to have been that of the abbé Girard; the publication of which obtained for him a seat amid the academicians of France: its first edition is dated in 1718, the enlarged edition in 1747. His work is generally known, and is certainly executed with elegance. The refinements of usage he detects with sagacity, and records with perspi cuity; if he sometimes errs in the valuation of a word, he seldom fails in communicating exactly his estimate; but he omits to analyze the causes of his results, and never seeks in historic etymology for the reasons which ne cessarily attach to the several synonyms differ ent sets of accessory ideas. This work was republished in 1770, and in 1776, with addi tional articles by Beauzee; and with other supplementary matter derived from the Ency clopedy. A distinct treatise on french synonyms, by the more careful and more learned Roubaud.