A Complete English-Latin Dictionary

Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Complete English-Latin Dictionary: For the Use of Colleges and Schools "Be patient," says an Eastern proverb, "and the mulberry-leaf will become satin." The Author of this Volume fears that he has severely exercised the patience of many persons by whom its announcement was favourably received. He is not bold enough to apply the latter portion of the proverb to the quality of his work; but he fearlessly asserts that his own patience has been the most severely taxed, and he trusts that the arduous nature of his task will be deemed a sufficient excuse for the delay which has taken place. None of the English-Latin Dictionaries extant could be fitly adopted as the basis of the new one. The plan of these works is so imperfect, and their Latin is of such doubtful quality, and often so decidedly bad, that they would have served rather to embarrass than to assist the present undertaking This volume is, in fact, quite independent of its unsatisfactory predecessors. It has been composed with the aid of good Dictionaries of the English language, - Latin-English Lexicons and Dictionaries, with reference to classical authorities, - and Dictionaries in foreign languages, including the German-Latin of Lunemann and others, and especially the French-Latin of Noel. Two leading objects have been kept in view throughout this Dictionary; namely, to give good Latin, and to exhibit a complete English vocabulary, with the addition of meanings to such words as are often used in various acceptations. The meanings have been carefully divided, and arranged. Readers will, of course, judge for themselves concerning the value of the whole work; but a brief notice of some things which have been done, or at least attempted, may not be altogether useless. The Latin is classical; that is to say, the words and phrases recommended in this Dictionary are such as occur in good Latin writers. Authorities have been copiously cited; but it has not been thought necessary to attach writers names to all the common and well-known words of the language. English words expressive of ideas peculiar to modern times have received the best renderings which the Author could either find or devise; but these, together indeed with the rest of the work, he submits to the judgment of the learned, with every apology for all imperfections, and with a very humble request for candour and indulgence. Many words, however, which at first sight appear purely modern, or, for some reason, not capable of being directly expressed in Latin, find, in fact, an exact and simple representative in some single word, or some very compendious phrase, of a classical writer. Barbarous or low Latin has been carefully excluded from the columns of this Dictionary; but, in some instances, when a bad word looks like a good one, or when such a word has received the sanction of existing English-Latin Dictionaries, the inferior Latin has been given in a parenthesis, with the name of a writer in whose works it may be found, by way of caution. But the Author does not profess to have pursued this plan with respect to all the bad Latin which has been recommended by our earlier lexicographers; for, unfortunately, the words to which this description would apply are very numerous, and the continual task of warning the reader against the use of them would have been, perhaps, equally invidious and needless. The English Vocabulary will be found, it is hoped, large enough. It is, in substance, a list of English words, such as occur in our standard writers, or are in lawful and general use at the present day. Some terms nearly or quite obsolete have been inserted; especially such as are met with in well-known writers, or in any English compositions likely to be proposed for translation into Latin. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com