Henry Sweet

The Students Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Henry Sweet

This is a reproduction of the original book published in 1911. Cover design is by wisdombooks.faith This dictionary was undertaken at the request of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, who, feeling the want of an abridgement of the large Anglo-Saxon dictionary (BT) still in progress, applied to me. From a variety of reasons I felt myself obliged to undertake the work. As the book was wanted as soon as possible, with a view to forestalling unauthorized abridgements, I could only under take to do my best within a limited space and a limited period. Every dictionary is necessarily a compromise. If done ideally well and on an adequate scale, it is never finished - and an unfinished dictionary is worse than useless - or, if finished, is never uniform as regards materials and treatment. A dictionary which is good from a practical point of view - that is, which is finished within a reasonable time, and is kept within reasonable limits of space - must necessarily fall far short of ideal requirements. In short, we may almost venture on the paradox that a good dictionary is necessarily a bad one. Sources. - When I first began this work all the existing Anglo-Saxon dictionaries were completely antiquated. The old Bosworth is an uncritical compilation, which falls far short of the scientific requirements even of the period of its first publication. Ettmuller's Lexicon Anglosaxonicum is far superior as regards accuracy and fullness, but its unhappy arrangement of the words under hypothetical roots makes it practically useless to the beginner. Leo's Angel-sachsisches Glossar combines the faults of both its predecessors with a recklessness in inventing new forms and meanings which is without a parallel even in Anglo-Saxon lexicography. I had hardly begun to work steadily at this dictionary when a Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary was brought out by Dr. Clark Hall (CH), an American scholar. CH is a work of great industry, and contains a good deal of new and valuable matter; but it is terribly uncritical, and embodies an enormous number of spurious words and meanings.