Part 1 (1/2)

Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language

by Samuel Johnson

It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by lect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward

A these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pionier of literature, doomed only to reh which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a sress Every other authour rapher can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recoranted to very few

I have, notwithstanding this discouragee, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of tinorance, and caprices of innovation

When I took the first survey of , I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned led, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority

Having therefore no assistance but frorammar, I applied ht be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accurees, I reduced to ress of the work, such rules as experience and analogy suggested to me; experience, which practice and observation were continually increasing; and analogy, which, though in so the ORTHOGRAPHY, which has been to this tiuish those irregularities that are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, froence of later writers has produced Every language has its anoh inconvenient, and in the the iistered, that they may not be increased, and ascertained, that they e has likewise its improprieties and absurdities, which it is the duty of the lexicographer to correct or proscribe

As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of necessary or common use were spoken before they ritten; and while they were unfixed by any visible signs, reat diversity, asobserve those who cannot read catch sounds iently When this wild and barbarous jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavoured to express, as he could, the sounds which he was accusto such words as were already vitiated in speech The powers of the letters, when they were applied to a new language, ue and unsettled, and therefore different hands would exhibit the same sound by different combinations

Froreat part the various dialects of the saroer, and less different, as books are multiplied; and from this arbitrary representation of sounds by letters, proceeds that diversity of spelling observable in the Saxon remains, and I suppose in the first books of every nation, which perplexes or destroys analogy, and produces ano once incorporated, can never be afterward dismissed or refor, strength fro froh, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writes highth; Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una [Horace, Epistles, II ii 212]; to change all would be too

This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are so capriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accident or affectation, not only in every province, but in every ists, little regard is to be shewn in the deduction of one language froraphy, but spots of barbarity ie, that criticism can never wash them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain untouched; but many words have likewise been altered by accident, or depraved by ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been weakly followed; and some still continue to be variously written, as authours differ in their care or skill: of these it was proper to enquire the true orthography, which I have always considered as depending on their derivation, and have therefore referred thees: thus I write enchant, enchantment, enchanter, after the French and incantation after the Latin; thus entire is chosen rather than intire, because it passed to us not froer, but from the French entier

Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately received from the Latin or the French, since at the time e had dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches It is, however, enerally supplied us; for we have few Latin words, a the terms of domestick use, which are not French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin

Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been often obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in coh, deceit and receipt, fancy and phantom; sometimes the derivative varies from the primitive, as explain and explanation, repeat and repetition

So the same power are used indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in choak, choke; soap, sope; jewel, fuel, and many others; which I have sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them under either forraphy of any doubtful word, theby which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary, is to be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not often rashly, the preference I have left, in the examples, to every authour his own practice une between us: but this question is not always to be deterreater things, have thought little on sounds and derivations; solected those in which our words are coht Thus Hammond writes fecibleness for feasibleness, because I suppose he iined it derived immediately from the Latin; and some words, such as dependant, dependent, dependence, dependence, vary their final syllable, as one or another language is present to the writer

In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without controul, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have endeavoured to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a graue I have attereater part is from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I hts have been perhaps eularities, not to disturb, upon narros, or for raphy of their fathers It has been asserted, that for the law to be KNOWN, is of e, says Hooker, is not made without inconvenience, even froeneral and lasting advantage, which will always overbalance the slow iht our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place es, which will again be changed, while i them

This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not proceed from an opinion, that particular combinations of letters have much influence on huht byfanciful And erroneous: I aet that WORDS ARE THE DAUGHTERS OF EARTH, AND THAT THINGS ARE THE SONS OF HEAVEN Language is only the instruns of ideas: I wish, however, that the instruht be per the orthography, I have not wholly neglected the pronunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent upon the acute or elevated syllable It will sometimes be found, that the accent is placed by the authour quoted, on a different syllable from that marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to be understood, that custom has varied, or that the authour has, inShort directions are soular; and if they are sometimes omitted, defect in such minute observations will be ation both of the orthography and signification of words, their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they were therefore to be divided into primitives and derivatives

A prilish root; thus circumspect, circuh compounds in the Latin, are to us primitives Derivatives are all those that can be referred to any word in English of greater simplicity

The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with an accuracy sometimes needless; for who does not see that remoteness comes from remote, lovely from love, concavity frorammatical exuberance the schereat ie, to trace one word fro the usual modes of derivation and inflection; and uniforh so other derivatives I have been careful to insert and elucidate the anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in the Teutonick dialects are very frequent, and though familiar to those who have always used thee

The two languages from which our primitives have been derived are the Roman and Teutonick: under the Roues; and under the Teutonick range the Saxon, German, and all their kindred dialects Most of our polysyllables are Roman, and our words of one syllable are very often Teutonick

In assigning the Roinal, it has perhaps sometimes happened that I have mentioned only the Latin, when the as borrowed fro uage, I have not been very careful to observe whether the Latin word be pure or barbarous, or the French elegant or obsolete

For the Teutonick etyies, I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborn to quote when I copied their books; not that I ht appropriate their labours or usurp their honours, but that I ht not to mention but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner in rectitude of understanding Junius was accurately skilled in all the northern languages Skinner probably examined the ancient and remoter dialects only by occasional inspection into dictionaries; but the learning of Junius is often of no other use than to show him a track by which he may deviate from his purpose, to which Skinner always presses forward by the shortest way Skinner is often ignorant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of knowledge; but his variety distracts his judgraced by his absurdities

The votaries of the northern nation, when they find the naeous coence, or his attaine that etyment, who can seriously derive dream from drama, because life is a drama, and a drama is a dream? and who declares with a tone of defiance, that no le or solitary, who considers that grief naturally loves to be alone