[muglo] OT Origin of English dictionaries

From: emedzon <emedzon@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <muglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 16:13:33 -0500


For the etymologists among us here is the answer to the origin of English
dictionaries from my friend Victoria Neufeld, of the Dictionary Society of
America. (She is a Canadian retired in Saskatoon)

Robert Cawdrey's work, _A Table Alphabetical_, published in 1604,
is considered to be the first English dictionary.  But Cawdrey made use of
earlier compilations of words for his dictionary, and there were earlier
bilingual and even polyglot dictionaries involving English.  The first work
to use the word 'dictionary' in the title was Henry Cockeram's _The English
Dictionarie_, published in 1623.  There were a number of other dictionaries
published in the 17th century too, most building on what had gone before.

Ted Medzon


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[muglo] OT Origin of English dictionaries

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