Produced by Karl Hagen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks,
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'Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains thetrophies of its past, and the weapons of its future, conquests'—COLERIDGE
'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!'—SHAKESPEARE
TWENTIETH EDITION revised by
Joint Author of 'The Concise Middle English Dictionary'
In all essential points this edition of The Study of Words is the samebook as the last edition. The aim of the editor has been to alter aslittle of Archbishop Trench's work as possible. In the arrangement ofthe book, in the order of the chapters and paragraphs, in the style, inthe general presentation of the matter, no change has been made. On theother hand, the work has been thoroughly revised and corrected. A greatdeal of thought and labour has of late been bestowed on Englishphilology, and there has been a great advance in the knowledge of thelaws regulating the development of the sounds of English words, and theresult has been that many a derivation once generally accepted has hadto be given up as phonetically impossible. An attempt has been made topurge the book of all erroneous etymologies, and to correct in the textsmall matters of detail. There have also been added some footnotes, inwhich difficult points are discussed and where reference is given torecent authorities. All editorial additions, whether in the text or inthe notes, are enclosed in square brackets. It is hoped that the bookas it now stands does not contain in its etymological details anythinginconsistent with the latest discoveries of English scholars.
WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD: August, 1888.
These lectures will not, I trust, be found anywhere to have left out ofsight seriously, or for long, the peculiar needs of those for whom theywere originally intended, and to whom they were primarily addressed. Iam conscious, indeed, here and there, of a certain departure from myfirst intention, having been in part seduced to this by a circumstancewhich I had not in the least contemplated when I obtained permission todeliver them, by finding, namely, that I should have other hearersbesides the pupils of the Training-School. Some matter adapted forthose rather than for these I was thus led to introduce—whichafterwards I was unwilling, in preparing for the press, to remove; onthe contrary adding to it rather, in the hope of obtaining thus asomewhat wider circle of readers than I could have hoped, had I morerigidly restricted myself in the choice of my materials. Yet I shouldgreatly regret to have admitted so much of this as should deprive theselectures of their fitness for those whose profit in writing and inpublishing I had mainly in view, namely schoolmasters, and thosepreparing to be such.
Had I known any book entering with any fulness, and in a popular manner,into the subject-matter of these pages, and making it its exclusivetheme, I might still have delivered these lectures, but should scarcelyhave sought for them a wider audience than their first, gladly leavingthe matter in their hands, whose studies in language had been fullerand riper than my own. But abundant and ready to hand as are thematerials for such a book, I did not; while yet it seems to me that thesubject is one to which it is beyond m