Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they
are listed at the end of the text.
* * * * *
In this version [=e] signifies "e macron"; [)e] "e breve"; [.e] "e with dot
above"; and so forth.
CHAMBERS'S
TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY
OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
PRONOUNCING, EXPLANATORY, ETYMOLOGICAL, WITH COMPOUND PHRASES,
TECHNICAL TERMS IN USE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES,
COLLOQUIALISMS, FULL APPENDICES, AND
COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED
EDITED BY
REV. THOMAS DAVIDSON
ASSISTANT-EDITOR OF 'CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPÆDIA'
EDITOR OF 'CHAMBERS'S ENGLISH DICTIONARY'
LONDON: 47 Paternoster Row
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED
EDINBURGH: 339 High Street
1908
* * * * *
CHAMBERS'S
NEW LARGE TYPE
ENGLISH DICTIONARY
EDITED BY
REV. THOMAS DAVIDSON
_Pronouncing_, _Explanatory_, _Etymological_
1264 pp. Imp. 8vo, cloth, 12/6; hf.-mor., 18/-
------
"The best one volume dictionary in existence."
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED, LONDON AND EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
This is the third English Dictionary which the present Editor has prepared,
and he may therefore lay claim to an unusually prolonged apprenticeship to
his trade. It is surely unnecessary for him to say that he believes this to
be the best book of the three, and he can afford to rest content if the
Courteous Reader receive it with the indulgence extended to his Library
Dictionary, published in the spring of 1898. It is based upon that work,
but will be found to possess many serviceable qualities of its own. It is
not much less in content, and its greater relative portability is due to
smaller type, to thinner paper, and still more to a rigorous compression
and condensation in the definitions, by means of which room has been found
for many additional words.
The aim has been to include all the common words in literary and
conversational English, together with words obsolete save in the pages of
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Authorised Version of the Bible. An
attempt has been made also to include the common terms of the sciences and
the arts of life, the vocabulary of sport, those Scotch and provincial
words which assert themselves in Burns, Scott, the Brontës, and George
Eliot, and even the coinages of word-masters like Carlyle, Browning, and
Meredith. Numberless compound idiomatic phrases have also been given a
place, in each case under the head of the significant word.
Correctness in technical matters has been ensured by consulting such books
as Smyth's _Sailor's Word-Book_, Voyle's _Military Dictionary_, Wilson's
_Stock-Exchange Glossary_, Lee's _Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical
Terms_, &c. Besides books of this class, the Editor has made constant use
of special books such as Schmidt's _Shakespeare-Lexicon_, Calderwood's
edition of Fleming's _Vocabulary of Philosophy_, Jamieson's _Scottish
Dictionary_, the _Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases_,
Yule and Burnell's _Anglo-Indian Glossary_, Addis and Arnold's _Catholic
Dictionary_, and the Dictionaries of the Bible of Sir William Smith and Dr
Hastings.
In Latin, his authority is Lewis and Short; in Greek, Liddell and Scott; in
Romance Philology, Diez and Scheler; in French, Littré; in Spanish,
Velazquez; in German, Weigand and Flügel; in Gaelic, Macleod and Dewar, and
M'Bain; in Hebrew, Gesenius.
In English etymology the Editor has consulted Professor Skeat's
_Dictionary_ and his _Principles of English Etymology_--First and Second
Series; the magistral _New English Dictionary_ of Dr James A. H. Murray and
Mr Henry Bradley, so far as completed; and the only less valuable _English
Dialect Dictionary_ of Professor Wright (begun 1896).
Two complete American _English Dictionaries_ still hold the first place as
works of reference, Professor Whitney's _Century Dictionary_ and Funk and
Wagnall's _Standard Dictionary_.
The Editor has great pleasure in acknowledging his personal obligations to
his brothers, the Rev. Robert P. Davidson, B.A., of Trinity College,
Oxford, and David G. Davidson, M.D., Edinburgh; and to his equally capable
and courteous colleagues, Mr J. R. Pairman and David Patrick, LL.D., Editor
of _Chambers's Encyclopædia_.