 Part 1 of Plan of an English Dictionary by Samuel Johnson. Part 1 to the right Honorable Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield. One of His Majesty's Principles, Secretaries of State. My Lord. When first I undertook to write an English Dictionary, I had no expectation of any higher patronage than that of the proprietors of the copy, nor prospect of any other advantage than the price of my labour. I knew that the work in which I engaged is generally considered as drudgery for the blind as the proper toil of artless industry, a task that requires neither the light of learning nor the activity of genius, but may be successfully performed without any higher quality than that of bearing burdens with dull patience, and beating the track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution. Whether this opinion so long transmitted and so widely propagated had its beginning from truth and nature or from accident and prejudice, whether it be decreed by the authority of reason or the tyranny of ignorance, that of all the candidates for literary praise, the unhappy lexicographer holds the lowest place neither vanity nor interest incited me to inquire. It appeared that the province allotted me was of all the regions of learning generally confessed to be the least delightful, that it was believed to produce neither fruits nor flowers, and that after a long and laborious cultivation not even the barren laurel had been found upon it. That on this province, my lord, I entered, with the pleasing hope that, as it was low, it likewise would be safe. I was drawn forward with the prospect of employment, which, though not splendid, would be useful, and which, though it could not make my life envied, would keep it innocent, which would awaken no passion, engage me in no contention, nor throw in my way any temptation to disturb the quiet of others by censure, or my own by flattery. I had read, indeed, of times in which princes and statesmen thought it part of their honor to promote the improvement of their native tongues, and in which dictionaries were written under the protection of greatness. To the patrons of such undertakings I willingly paid the homage of believing that they, who were thus solicitous for the perpetuity of their language, had reason to expect that their actions would be celebrated by posterity, and that the eloquence which they promoted would be employed in their praise. But I considered such acts of beneficence as prodigies, recorded rather to raise wonder than expectation, and content with the terms that I had stipulated, had not suffered my imagination to flatter me with any other encouragement, when I found that my design had been thought by your lordship of importance sufficient to attract your favor. How far this unexpected distinction can be rated among the happy incidents of life I am not yet able to determine. Its first effect has been to make me anxious, lest it should fix the attention of the public too much upon me, and, as it once happened to an epic poet of France, by raising the reputation of the attempt obstruct the reception of the work. I imagine what the world will expect from a scheme prosecuted under your lordship's influence, and I know that expectation, when her wings are once expanded, easily reaches heights which performance never will attain, and when she has mounted the summant of perfection derides her follower who dies in the pursuit. Not therefore to raise expectation, but to repress it, I here lay before your lordship the plan of my undertaking that more may not be demanded than I intend, and that, before it is too far advanced to be thrown into a new method, I may be advertised of its defects or superfluities. Such informations I may justly hope from the emulation with which those who desire the praise of elegance or discernment must contend in the promotion of a design that you, my lord, have not thought unworthy to share your attention with treaties and with wars. In the first attempt to methodize my ideas I found a difficulty which extended itself to the whole work. It was not easy to determine by what rule of distinction the words of this dictionary were to be chosen. The chief intent of it is to preserve the purity and ascertain the meaning of our English idiom, and this seems to require nothing more than that our language be considered, so far as it is our own. Let the words and phrases used in the general intercourse of life, or found in the works of those whom we commonly style polite writers, be selected without including the terms of particular professions, since with the arts to which they relate they are generally derived from other nations and are very often the same in all the languages of this part of the world. This is perhaps the exact and pure idea of a grammatical dictionary, but in lexicography, as in other arts, naked science is too delicate for the purposes of life. The value of a work must be estimated by its use. It is not enough that a dictionary delights the critic, unless, at the same time, it instructs the learner, as it is of little purpose that an engine amuses the philosopher by the subtlety of its mechanism if it requires so much knowledge in its application as to be of no advantage to the common workmen. The title which I prefix to my work has long conveyed a very miscellaneous idea, and they that take a dictionary into their hands have been accustomed to expect from it a solution of almost every difficulty. If foreign words, therefore, were rejected, it could be little regarded except by critics, or those who aspire to criticism, and, however, it might enlighten those that write, would be all darkness to them that only read. The unlearned, much oftener, consult their dictionaries for the meaning of words than for their structures or formations, and the words that most want explanation are generally terms of art, which, therefore, experience has taught my predecessors to spread with a kind of pompous luxuriance over their productions. The academicians of France, indeed, rejected terms of science in their first essay, but found afterwards a necessity of relaxing the rigor of their determination, and though they would not naturalize them at once by a single act, permitted them by degrees to settle themselves among the natives with little opposition, and it would surely be no proof of judgment to imitate them in an error which they have now retracted, and deprived the book of its chief use by scrupulous distinctions. Of such words, however, all are not equally to be considered as parts of our language, for some of them are naturalized and incorporated, but others still continue aliens, and are rather auxiliaries than subjects. This naturalization is produced either by an admission into common speech in some metaphorical signification, which is the acquisition of a kind of property among us, as we say, the zenith of advancement, the meridian of life, the sinister of neighboring eyes, or it is the consequence of long intermixture and frequent use, by which the ear is accustomed to the sound of words till their original is forgotten, as in equator, satellites, or of the change of a foreign to an English termination, and a conformity to the laws of speech into which they are adopted, as in Category, Casecgi, Paranyumony. Of those which still continue in the state of aliens, and have made no approaches towards assimilation, some seem necessary to be retained, because the purchasers of the dictionary will expect to find them. Such are many words in the common law, as Capius, Habeus, Corpus, Pramignur, Nisiprius, such are some terms of controversial divinity as hypostasis, and of physics as the names of diseases, and in general all terms which can be found in books not written professibly upon particular arts, or can be supposed necessary to those who do not regularly study them. Thus, when a reader not skilled in physics happens in Milton upon this line, Pining, Atrophy, Marimus, and Wide Wasting Pestulence, he will, with equal expectation, look into his dictionary for the word Marasmus as for Atrophy or Pestulence, and will have reason to complain if he does not find it. It seems necessary to the completion of a dictionary, designed not merely for critics, but for popular use, that it should comprise, in some degree, the peculiar words of every profession, that the terms of war and navigation should be inserted, so far as they can be required by readers of travels, and of history, and those of law, merchandise, and mechanical trades, so far as they can be supposed useful in the occurrences of common life. But there ought, however, to be some distinction made between the different classes of words, and therefore it will be proper to print those which are incorporated into the language in the usual character, and those which are still to be considered as foreign in the italic letter. Another question may arise with regard to appetitives, or the names of species. It seems of no great use to set down the words horse, dog, cat, willow, alder, daisy, rose, and a thousand others, of which it will be hard to give an explanation not more obscure than the word itself. Yet it is to be considered that if the names of animals be inserted, we must admit those which are more known, as well as those with which we are by accident less acquainted. And if they are all rejected, how will the reader be relieved from difficulties produced by illusions, to the crocodile, the chameleon, the etch-newman, and the hyena? If no plants are to be mentioned, the most pleasing part of nature will be excluded, and many beautiful epithets be unexplained. If only those which are less known are to be mentioned, who shall fix the limits of the reader's learning? The importance of such explication appears from the mistakes which the want of them has occasioned. Had Shakespeare had a dictionary of this kind, he had not made the woodbine entwined the honeysuckle, nor would Milton, with such assistance, have disposed so improperly of his elapses and his scorpion. Besides, as such words like others require that their accents should be settled, their sounds ascertained, and their etymologies deduced, they cannot be properly omitted in the dictionary. And though the explanations of some may be censured as trivial, because they are almost universally understood, and those of others as unnecessary, because they will seldom occur, yet it seems not proper to admit them, since it is rather to be wished that many readers should find more than they expect, than that one should miss what he might hope to find. When all the words are selected and arranged, the first part of the work to be considered is the orthography, which was long vague and uncertain, which, at last, when its fluctuation ceased, was in many cases settled but by accident, and in which, according to your lordship's observation, there is still great uncertainty among the best critics, nor is it easy to state a rule by which we may decide between custom and reason, or between the equiponderent authorities of writers alike eminent for judgment and accuracy. The great orthographical contest has long subsisted between etymology and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand, that men should write as they speak, but as it has been shown that this conformity never was attained in any language, and that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety, why men do not rather speak as they write. In France, where this controversy was at its greatest height, neither party, however ardent, durced and hear steadily to their own rule. The etymologist was often forced to spell with the people, and the advocate for the authority of pronunciation found it sometimes deviating capriciously from the received use of writing, that he was constrained to comply with the rule of his adversaries, lest he should lose the end by the means, and be left alone by following the crowd. When a question of orthography is dubious, that practice has, in my opinion, a claim to preference which preserves the greatest number of radical letters, or seems most to comply with the general custom of our language. But the chief rule, which I propose to follow, is to make no innovation without a reason sufficient to balance the inconvenience of change. And such reasons I do not expect often to find. All change is of itself an evil which ought not to be hazarded, but for evident advantage, and as in constancy is in every case a mark of weakness, it will add nothing to the reputation of our tongue. There are indeed some who despise the inconveniences of confusion, who seem to take pleasure in departing from custom, and to think alteration desirable for its own sake. And the reformation of our orthography, which these writers have attempted, should not pass without its due honors, but that, I suppose, they hold singularity, its own reward, or may dread the fascination of lavish praise. The present usage of spelling, where the present usage can be distinguished, will therefore, in this work, be generally followed, yet there will be often occasion to observe that it is in itself inaccurate and tolerated rather than chosen. Particularly when, by the change of one letter or more, the meaning of a word is obscured, as in farrier for farrier, as it was formally written, from pharum or fair, in gibberish for gibberish, the jargon of gibber and his chemical followers, understood by none but their own tribe, it will be likewise, sometimes proper, to trace back the orthography of different ages, and show by what gradations the word departed from its original. Closely connected with orthography is pronunciation, the stability of which is of great importance to the duration of a language, because the first change will naturally begin by corruptions in the living speech. The want of certain rules for the pronunciation of former ages has made us wholly ignorant of the metrical art of our ancient poets, and since those who study their sentiments regret the loss of their numbers, it is surely time to provide that the harmony of the moderns may be more permanent. A new pronunciation will make almost a new speech, and therefore, since one great end of this undertaking is to fix the English language, care will be taken to determine the accentuation of all polysyllables by proper authorities, as it is one of those capricious phenomena which cannot be easily reduced to rules. Thus there is no antecedent reason for difference of accent in the two words Dolores and Sonoras. Yet of the one Milton gives the sound, in this line he passed over many a region Dolores, and that of the other in this. It may be likewise proper to remark metrical licenses such as contractions, generous, generous, reverend, reverend, and coalitions as region, question. But still it is more necessary to fix the pronunciation of monosyllables by placing with them words of correspondent sound, that one may guard the other against the danger of that variation which to some of the most common has already happened, so that the words wound and when, as they are now frequently pronounced, will not rhyme to sound in mind. It is to be remarked that many words written alike are differently pronounced, as flow and brow, which may be thus registered flow, woe, brow, now, or of which the exemplification may generally be given by a distitch. Thus the words tear, or lacerate, and tear, the water of an eye, have the same letters, but may be distinguished thus, tear, dare, tear, peer. Some words have two sounds, which may be equally admitted as being equally defensible by authority. Thus great is differently used, for swift and him despised the farce of state, the sober follies of the wise and great pope. As if misfortune made the throne her seat, and none could be unhappy, but the greet row. The care of such minute particulars may be censured as trifling, but these particulars have not been thought unworthy of attention in more polished languages. The accuracy of the French, in stating the sounds of their letters, is well known, and among the Italians Crescent Benny has not thought it unnecessary to inform his countrymen of the words which, in compliance with different rhymes, are allowed to be differently spelt, and of which the number is now so fixed that no modern poet is suffered to increase it. When the orthography and pronunciation are adjusted, the etymology, or derivation, is next to be considered, and the words are to be distinguished according to the different classes, whether simple as day, light, or compound as daylight, whether primitive as to act, or derivative as action, actionable, active, activity. This will much facilitate the attainment of our language, which now stands in our dictionaries a confused heap of words without dependence and without relation. When this part of the work is performed, it will be necessary to inquire how our primitives are to be deduced from foreign languages, which may be often very successfully performed by the assistants of our own etymologists. This search will give occasion to many curious dispositions, and sometimes, perhaps to conjectures, which to readers unacquainted with this kind of study cannot but appear improbable and capricious. But it may be reasonably imagined that what is so much in the power of men as language will very often be capriciously conducted, nor are these dispositions and conjectures to be considered altogether as wanton sports of wit, or vain shows of learning. Our language is well known not to be primitive or self-originated, but to have adopted words of every generation, and either for the supply of its necessities or the increase of its copiousness to have received additions from very distant regions, so that in search of the progenitors of our speech we may wander from the tropic to the frozen zone and find some in the valleys of Palestine and some upon the rocks of Norway. Beside the derivation of particular words, there is likewise an etymology of phrases. These are often taken from other languages, some, apparently, as to run a risk, career en risque, and some, even when we do not seem to borrow their words thus to bring about or accomplish, appears an English phrase, but in reality our native word about has no such import and is only a French expression of which we have an example in the common phrase, vénère abou d'unifère. In exhibiting the descent of our language, our etymologists seem to have been too lavish of their learning, having traced almost every word through various tongues, only to show what was shown sufficiently by the first derivation. This practice is of great use in synoptical lexacons where mutilated and doubtful languages are explained by their affinity to others more certain and extensive, but is generally superfluous in English etymologies. When the word is easily deduced from a Saxon original, I shall not often inquire further since we know not the parent of the Saxon dialect, but when it is borrowed from the French I shall show once the French is apparently derived, where a Saxon root cannot be found, the defect may be supplied from Kendred languages which will be liberally furnished with much liberality by the writers of our glossaries, writers who deserve often the highest praise both of judgment and industry, and may expect at least to be mentioned with honor by me, whom they have freed from the greatest part of a very laborious work, and on whom they have imposed at worst only the easy task of rejecting superfluities. By tracing in this manner every word to its original, and not admitting, but with great caution any of which no original can be found, we shall secure our language from being overrun with can't, from being crowded with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation, which arise from no just principles of speech, and of which therefore no legitimate derivation can be shown. When the etymology is thus adjusted, the analogy of our language is next to be considered. When we have discovered once our words are derived, we are to examine by what rules they are governed, and how they are inflected through their various terminations. The terminations of the English are few, but those few have hitherto remained unregarded by the writers of our dictionaries. Our substantives are declined only by the plural termination. Our adjectives admit no variation, but in the degrees of comparison, and our verbs are conjugated by auxiliary words, and are only changed in the preter tense. To our language may be, with great justice applied the observation of Quintillion, that speech was not formed by an analogy sent from heaven. It did not descend to us in a state of uniformity and perfection, but was produced by necessity, and enlarged by accident, and is therefore composed of dissimilar parts, thrown together by negligence, by affectation, by learning, or by ignorance. Our inflections, therefore, are by no means constant, but admit of numerous irregularities, which in this dictionary will be diligently noted. Thus Fox makes in the plural foxes, but Ox makes oxen. Sheep is the same in both numbers. Adjectives are sometimes compared by changing the last syllable as proud, prouder, proudest, and sometimes by particles prefixed as ambitious, more ambitious, most ambitious. The forms of our verbs are subject to great variety, some in their preter tense in ed, as I love, I loved, I have loved, which may be called the regular form, and is followed by most of our verbs of southern original. But many depart from this rule without agreeing in any other, as I shake, I shook, I have shaken, or shook, as it is sometimes written in poetry, I make, I made, I have made, I bring, I brought, I ring, I rung, and many others which, as they cannot be reduced to rules, must be learned from the dictionary rather than the grammar. The verbs are likewise to be distinguished according to their qualities as actives from neuters, the neglect of which has already introduced some barbarities in our conversations, which, if not obviated by just and of inversions, may in time creep into our writings. Thus, my lord, will our language be laid down, distinct in its minutest subdivisions, and resolved into its elemental principles? And who upon this survey can forbear to wish that these fundamental atoms of our speech might obtain the firmness and immutability of the primogenial and constituent particles of matter, that they might retain their substance, while they alter their appearance, and be varied and compounded, yet not destroyed? But this is a privilege which words are scarcely to expect, for like their author, when they are not gaining strength, they are generally losing it. Though art may sometimes prolong their duration, it will rarely give them perpetuity, and their changes will be almost always informing us that language is the work of man, of a being from whom permanence and stability cannot be derived. End of Part 1 of the Plan of an English Dictionary. Read by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California for LibriVox. Fall 2007. Part 2 of Plan for a Dictionary of English by Samuel Johnson. This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Plan and Preface for a Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson. Part 2 of Plan for a Dictionary of English. Words having been hitherto considered as separate and unconnected are now to be likewise examined as they are arranged in their various relations to others, by the rules of syntax or construction, to which I do not know that any regard has been yet shown in English dictionaries, and in which the grammarians can give little assistance. The syntax of this language is too inconstant to be reduced to rules, and can be only learned by the distinct consideration of particular words as they are used by the best authors. Thus, we say, according to the present modes of speech, the soldier died of his wounds, and the sailor perished with hunger, and every man acquainted with our language would be offended with the change of these particles, which yet seem originally assigned by chance. There being no reason to be drawn from grammar why a man may not, with equal propriety, be said to die with a wound or perish of hunger. Our syntax, therefore, is not to be taught by general rules, but by special precedents, and in examining whether Addison has been with justice accused of a solicism in this passage, the poor inhabitant starves in the midst of nature's bounty cursed, and in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst. It is not in our power to have recourse to any established laws of speech, but we must remark how the writers of former ages have used the same word, and consider whether he can be acquitted of impropriety upon the testimony of Davies given in his favor by a similar passage. She loathes the watery glass wherein she gazed, and shuns it still, although for thirst she die. When the construction of a word is explained, it is necessary to pursue it through its train of phraseology, through those forms where it is used in a manner peculiar to our language or in senses not to be comprised in the general explanations, as from the verb make arise these phrases, to make love, to make an end, to make way, as he made way for his followers, the ship made way before the wind, to make a bed, to make merry, to make a mock, to make presents, to make a doubt, to make out an assertion, to make good a breach, to make good a cause, to make nothing of an attempt, to make lamentation, to make a merit, and many others which will occur in reading with that view, and which only their frequency hinders from being generally remarked. The great labor is yet to come, the labor of interpreting these words and phrases with brevity, fullness and perspicuity, a task of which the extent and intricacy is sufficiently shown by the miscarriage of those who have generally attempted it. This difficulty is increased by the necessity of explaining the words in the same language, for there is often only one word for one idea, and though it be easy to translate the words bright, sweet, salt, bitter into another language, it is not easy to explain them. With regard to the interpretation, many other questions have required consideration. It was sometimes doubted whether it be necessary to explain the things implied by particular words as under the term baronette, whether, instead of this explanation, a title of honor next in degree to that of baron, it would be better to mention more particularly the creation, privileges, and rank of baronettes. And whether, under the word barometer, instead of being satisfied with observing that it is an instrument to discover the weight of the air, it would be fit to spend a few lines upon its invention, construction, and principles. It is not to be expected that with the explanation of the one, the herald should be satisfied, or the philosopher with that of the other. But since it will be required by common readers that the explications should be sufficient for common use, and since without attention to such demands the dictionary cannot become generally valuable, I have determined to consult the best writers for explanations real as well as verbal. And perhaps I may at last have reason to say, after one of the augmenters of Fouretierre, that my book is more learned than its author. In explaining the general and popular language it seems necessary to sort the several senses of each word, and to exhibit first its natural and primitive signification as to arrive, to reach the shore in a voyage, he arrived at a safe harbor, then to give its consequential meaning, to arrive, to reach any place, whether by land or sea, as he arrived at his country's seat. Then its metaphorical sense, to obtain anything desired as he arrived at a peerage. Then to mention any observation that arises from the comparison of one meaning with another, as it may be remarked of the word arrive, that in consequence of its original and entomological sense it cannot be properly applied but to words signifying something desirable. Thus we say, a man arrived at happiness, but cannot say without a mixture of irony, he arrived at misery. Ground, the earth generally as opposed to the air or water, he swam till he reached ground, the bird fell to the ground, then follows the accidental or consequential signification in which ground implies anything that lies under another, as he laid colors upon a rough ground. The silk had blue flowers on a red ground. Then the remotor or metaphorical signification as the ground of his opinion was a false computation, the ground of his work was his father's manuscript. After having gone through the natural and figurative senses it will be proper to subjoin the poetical sense of each word where it differs from that which is in common use, as wanton applied to anything of which the motion is irregular without terror, as in wanton ringlets curled her hair. To the poetical sense may succeed the familiar, as of toast used to imply the person whose health is drunk, as the wise man's passion and the vain man's toast, pope. The familiar may be followed by the burlesque, as of mellow applied to good friendship, in all thy humors whether grave or mellow, Edison. Or of bite used for cheat. More adoop than wit Sappho can tell you how this man was bit, pope. And lastly may be produced the peculiar sense in which a word is found in any great author, as faculties. In Shakespeare signifies the powers of authority. This duncan has borne his faculties so meek, has been so clear in his great office that, etc. The signification of adjectives may be often ascertained by uniting them to substantives, as simple swain, simple sheep. Sometimes the sense of a substantive may be elucidated by the epithets annexed to it in good authors, as the boundless ocean, the open lawns. And where such advantage can be gained by a short quotation, it is not to be omitted. The difference of signification in words generally accounted synonymous ought to be carefully observed, as in pride, haughtiness, arrogance, and the strict and critical meaning ought to be distinguished from that which is loose and popular, as in the word perfection. Which though in its philosophical and exact sense, it can be of little use among human beings, is often so much degraded from its original signification that the academicians have inserted in their work the perfection of a language, and with a little more licentiousness, might have prevailed on themselves to have added the perfection of a dictionary. There are many other characters of words which it will be of use to mention. Some have both an active and passive signification, as fearful that which gives or which feels terror, a fearful prodigy, a fearful hair. Some have a personal, some a real meaning, as in opposition to old we use the adjective young of animated beings and new of other things. Some are restrained to the sense of praise, and others to that of disapprobation. So commonly, though not always, we exhort to good actions, we instigate to ill, we animate, incite, and encourage indifferently to good or bad. So we usually ascribe good but impute evil, yet neither the use of these words nor perhaps of any other in our licentious language is so established as not to be often reversed by the correctest writers. I shall therefore, since the rules of style, like those of law, arise from precedents, often repeated, collect the testimonies on both sides, and endeavor to discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long possessed, whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words. It is necessary, likewise, to explain many words by their opposition to others, for contraries are best seen when they stand together. Thus the verb stand has one sense, as opposed to fall, and another as opposed to fly. For want of attending to which distinction, obvious as it is, the learned Dr. Bentley has squandered his criticism to no purpose on these lines of Paradise Lost. In heaps chariot and charioteer lay overturned in fiery foaming steeds, what stood recoiled, or weirred, through the faint satanic host, defensive scarce, or with pale fear surprised, fled ignominious. Here, says the critic, as the sentence is now read, we find that what stood fled, and therefore he proposes an alteration which he might have spared if he had consulted a dictionary, and found that nothing more was affirmed than that those fled who did not fall. In explaining such meanings, as seem accidental and adventitious, I shall endeavor to give an account of the means by which they were introduced. Thus to eke out anything signifies to lengthen it beyond its just dimensions by some low artifice. Because the word eke was the usual refuge of our old writers when they wanted a syllable. And buxom, which means only, obedient, is now made in familiar phrases to stand for wanton. Because in an ancient form of marriage before the Reformation the bride promised complacence and obedience in these terms. I will be bonair and buxom in bed and at board. I know well, my lord, how trifling many of these remarks will appear separately considered, and how easily they make an occasion to the contemptuous merriment of sportive idleness and the gloomy censures of arrogance, stupidity. But dullness it is easy to despise, and laughter it is easy to repay. I shall not be solicitous what is thought of my work by such as know not the difficulty or importance of philological studies, nor shall think those that have done nothing qualified to condemn me for doing little. It may not, however, be improper to remind them that no terrestrial greatness is more than an aggregate of little things, and to inculcate, after the Arabian proverb, that drops added to drops constitute the ocean. There remains yet to be considered the distribution of words into their proper classes, or that part of lexicography, which is strictly critical. The important part of the language, which includes all words not appropriated to particular sciences, admits of many distinctions and subdivisions, as, into words of general use, words employed chiefly in poetry, words obsolete, words which are admitted only by particular writers, yet not in themselves improper, words used only in burlesque writing, and words impure and barbarous. Words of general use will be known by having no sign of particularity, and their various senses will be supported by authorities of all ages. The words appropriated to poetry will be distinguished by some mark prefixed, or will be known by having no authorities but those of poets. Of antiquated or obsolete words, none will be inserted, but such as are to be found in authors who wrote since the succession of Elizabeth, from which we date the golden age of our language, and of these many might be amended, but that the reader may require, with an appearance of reason, that no difficulty should be left unresolved in books which he finds himself invited to read, as confessed and established models of style. These will be likewise pointed out by some note of exclusion, but not of disgrace. The words which are found only in particular books still be known by the single name of him that has used them, but such will be omitted unless either their propriety, elegance, or force, or the reputation of their authors, afford some extraordinary reason for their reception. Words used in burlesque and familiar compositions will be likewise mentioned with their proper authorities, such as dudgeon from Butler, and leasing from Pryor, and will be diligently characterized by marks of distinction. Barbarous or impure words and expressions may be branded with some note of infamy, as they are carefully to be eradicated wherever they are found, and they occur too frequently, even in the best writers, as in Pope, in endless error hurled, tis these that early taint the female soul. In Addison attend to what a lesser muse indicts, and in Dryden a dreadful quiet fell, and were so far than arms. If this part of the proposal can be well performed, it will be equivalent to the proposal made by Boyeux, to the academicians, that they should review all their polite writers and correct such impurities as might be found in them, that their authority might not contribute at any distant time to the deprivation of the language. With regard to questions of purity or propriety, I was once in doubt whether I should not attribute too much to myself in attempting to decide them, and whether my province was to extend beyond the proposition of the question and the display of the suffrages on each side. But I have been since determined, by your lordship's opinion, to interpose my own judgment, and shall therefore endeavour to support what appears to me most consonant to grammar and reason. Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead in ability for a task to which Caesar had judged him equal. And I may hope, my lord, that since you, whose authority in our language is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to declare my own opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious jurisdiction, and that the power might have been denied to my own claim, will be readily allowed me as the delegate of your lordship. In sighting authorities, on which the credit of every part of this book must depend, it will be proper to observe some obvious rules, such as of preferring writers of the first reputation to those of an inferior rank, of noting the quotations with accuracy, and of selecting, when it can be conveniently done, such sentences as besides their immediate use may give pleasure or instruction by conveying some elegance of language or some precept of prudence or piety. It has been asked on some occasions who shall judge the judges, and since with regard to this design a question may arise by what authority the authorities are selected, it is necessary to obviate it by declaring that many of the writers whose testimonies will be alleged were selected by Mr. Pope, of whom I may be justified in affirming that were he still alive, solicitous as he was for the success of this work, he would not be displeased that I have undertaken it. It will be proper that the quotations be ranged according to the ages of their authors, and it will afford an agreeable amusement if to the words and phrases which are not part of our own growth the name of the writer who first introduced them can be affixed, and if to words which are now antiquated the authority be subjoined of him who last admitted them. Thus for scathe and buxom, now obsolete, Milton may be cited. The mountain oak stands scathed to heaven. He with broad sails winnowed the buxom air. By this method every word will have its history, and the reader will be informed of the gradual changes of the language, and have before his eyes the rise of some words and the fall of others. But observations so minute and accurate are to be desired rather than expected, and if use be carefully supplied curiosity must sometimes bear its disappointments. This, my lord, is my idea of an English dictionary, a dictionary by which the pronunciation of our language may be fixed and its attainment facilitated, by which its purity may be preserved, its use ascertained, and its duration lengthened. And though, perhaps, to correct the language of nations by books of grammar and amend their manners by discourses of morality may be tasks equally difficult, yet, as it is unavoidable to wish, it is natural likewise to hope that your lordship's patronage may not be wholly lost, that it may contribute to the preservation of ancient and the improvement of modern writers, that it may promote the reformation of those translators who, for want of understanding the characteristical differences of tongues, have formed a chaotic dialect of heterogeneous phrases, and awaken to the care of pure addiction some men of genius, whose attention to argument makes them negligent of style, or whose rapid imagination, like the Peruvian torrents, when it brings down gold, mingles it with sand. When I survey the plan which I have laid before you, I cannot, my lord, but confess that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the soldiers of Caesar, look on Britain as a new world which it is almost madness to invade. But I hope that, though I should not complete the conquest, I shall at least discover the coast, civilize part of the inhabitants, and make it easy for some other adventurer to proceed further, to reduce them wholly to subjection and settle them under laws. We are taught, by the great Roman orator, that every man should propose to himself the highest degree of excellence, but that he may stop with honor at the second or third. Though, therefore, my performance should fall below the excellence of other dictionaries, I may obtain, at least, the praise of having endeavored well. Nor shall I think it any reproach to my diligence that I have retired without a triumph, from a contest with united academies and long successions of learned compilers. I cannot hope, in the warmest moments, to preserve so much caution through so long a work, as not often to sink into negligence, or to obtain so much knowledge of all its parts, as not frequently to fail by ignorance. I expect that sometimes the desire of accuracy will urge me to superflutees, and sometimes the fear of prolixity betray me to omissions, that, in the extent of such variety, I shall be often bewildered, and, in the mazes of such intricacy, be frequently entangled, that in one part refinement will be subtleized beyond exactness, and evidence dilated in another beyond perpetuity. Yet I do not despair of approbation from those who, knowing the uncertainty of conjecture, the scantiness of knowledge, the fallibility of memory, and the unsteadiness of attention, can compare the causes of error with the means of avoiding it, and the extent of art with the capacity of man. And whatever be the event of my endeavours, I shall not easily regret an attempt which has procured me the honor of appearing thus publicly. My lord, your lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, Samuel Johnson. End of Part 2 of A Plan for a Dictionary of English. Read by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California for LibriVox. Fall 2007. Part 1 of Preface to the Dictionary from A Dictionary of the English Language. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Preface to the Dictionary from A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson. Part 1. It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by fear of evil than attracted by the prospect of good, to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise, to be disgraced by miscarriage or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries, whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the peonier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths of learning and genius, who press forward to conquest and glory without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few. I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary of the English language, 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 time and fashion, and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance and caprices of innovation. When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules. Wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled 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 from general grammar, I applied myself to the perusal of our writers, and noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase accumulated in time the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I reduced to method. Establishing to myself, in the progress 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 some words obscure, was evident in others. In adjusting the orthography, which has been to this time unsettled and fortuitous, I found it necessary to distinguish those irregularities that are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps co-evil with it, from others which the ignorance or negligence of later writers has produced. Every language has its anomalies, which, though inconvenient and in themselves once unnecessary, must be tolerated among the imperfections of human things, and which require only to be registered, that they may not be increased and ascertained, that they may not be confounded. But every language 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 were written, and while they were unfixed by any visible signs, must have been spoken with great diversity, as we now observe, those who cannot read, to catch sounds imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarous jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavored to express, as he could, the sounds which he was accustomed to pronounce, or to receive, and vitiated in writing such words as were already vitiated in speech. The powers of the letters, when they were applied to a new language, must have been vague and unsettled, and therefore different hands would exhibit the same sound by different combinations. From this uncertain pronunciation arise, in a great part, the various dialects of the same country, which will always be observed to grow fewer 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 anomalous formations, which, being once incorporated, can never be afterward dismissed or reformed. Of this kind are the derivatives length from long, strength from strong, darling from dear, breadth from broad, from dry, drought, and from high, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writes H-I-G-H-T-H, quid te exempte juvat spinis de Pluribus una. To change all would be too much, and to change one is nothing. 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 mouth, that to them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard is to be shown in the deduction of one language from another. Such defects are not errors in orthography, but spots of barbarity impressed so deep in the English language 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 authors differ in their care or skill. Of these it was proper to inquire the true orthography, which I have always considered as depending on their derivation, and have therefore referred them to their original languages. Thus I write enchant, enchantment, enchanter, after the French, and enchantation, after the Latin. Thus entire, E-N-T-I-R-E, is chosen rather than I-N-T-I-R-E, because it passed to us, not from the Latin, integer, but from the Greek, enché. Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately received from the Latin or the French, since at the time, when we had dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It is, however, my opinion that the French generally supplied us, for we have few Latin words, among the term of domestic 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 compliance with a numberless majority, convey and invay, deceit and receipt, fancy and phantom. Sometimes the derivative varies from the primitive as explain and explanation, repeat, and repetition. Some combinations of letters, having the same power, are used indifferently, without any discoverable reason of choice, as in choke, ch-o-a-k, choke, ch-o-k-e, soap, s-o-a-p, soap, s-o-p-e, fuel, f-e-w-e-l, fuel, f-u-e-l, and many others, which I have sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them under either form may not search in vain. In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of spelling by 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 author his own practice unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages and judge between us. But this question is not always to be determined by reputed or by real learning. Some men, intent upon greater things, have thought little on sounds and derivations. Some, knowing in the ancient tongues, have neglected those in which our words are commonly to be sought. Thus Hammond writes, fessableness for feasableness, because I suppose he imagined it derived immediately from the Latin. And some words, such as dependent, d-e-p-e-n-d-a-n-t, dependent, d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t, dependence, d-e-p-e-n-d-a-n-c-e, dependence, d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-c-e, vary their final syllable, as one or other language is present to the writer. In this part of the work, where Caprice has long wantoned, without control, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have endeavored to proceed with the scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I have attempted few alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greater part is from the modern to the ancient practice, and I hope I may be allowed to recommend to those whose thoughts have been, perhaps, employed too anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb upon narrow views, or for minute propriety, the orthography of their fathers. It has been asserted that for the law to be known is of more importance than to be right. Change, says Hooker, is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. There is, in constancy and stability, a general and lasting advantage which will always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance or copy that which every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes which will again be changed, while imitation is employed in observing them. This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not proceed from an opinion that particular combinations of letters have much influence on human happiness, or that truth may not be successfully taught by modes of spelling, fanciful and erroneous. I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas. I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. In settling 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 author quoted on a different syllable from that marked in the alphabetical entries. It is then to be understood that custom has varied, and that the author has, in my opinion, pronounced wrong. Short directions are sometimes given where the sound of letters is regular, and if they are sometimes omitted, defect in such minute observations will be more easily excused than superfluity. In the investigation 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 primitive word is that which can be traced no further to any English root. Thus, circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave, and complicate, though 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, from concave, and demonstrative, from demonstrate. But this grammatical exuberance, the scheme of my work, did not allow me to repress. It is of great importance in examining the general fabric of a language to trace one word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation and inflection, and uniformity must be preserved in systematical works, though sometimes at the expense of particular propriety. Among other derivatives I have been careful to insert and elucidate the anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in the Teutonic dialects are very frequent, and though familiar to those who have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learners of our language. The two languages from which our primitives have been derived are the Roman and Teutonic. Under the Roman I comprehend the French and provincial tongues, and under the Teutonic range the Saxon, German, and all their Kendra dialects. Most of our polysyllables are Roman, and our words of one syllable are very often Teutonic. In assigning the Roman original, it has perhaps sometimes happened that I have mentioned only the Latin when the word was borrowed from the French, and considering myself as employed only in the illustration of my own language, I have not been very careful to observe whether the Latin word be pure or barbarous, or the French elegant or obsolete. For the Teutonic etymologies I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have foreborn to quote when I copied their books. Not that I might appropriate their labors or usurp their honors, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors. Junius appears to have excelled in the extent of learning and Skinner in rectitude of understanding. Junius was accurately skilled in all the northern languages. Skinner probably examined the ancient and remote 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, and Junius is always full of knowledge. But his variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very frequently disgraced by his absurdities. The votaries of the northern muses will not, perhaps, easily restrain their indignation when they find the name of Junius thus degraded by a disadvantageous comparison, but whatever reverence is due to his diligence or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of sensoriousness to charge that etymologist with want of judgment who can seriously derive dream from drama, because life is a drama and a drama is a dream, and to declare us with a tone of defiance that no man can fail to derive moan from Manos, who considers that grief naturally loves to be alone. Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty that, of words undoubtedly Teutonic, the original is not always to be found in any ancient language, and I have generally inserted Dutch or German substitutes, which I consider not as radical, but parallel, not as the parents, but sisters of the English. The words which are represented as thus related by descent or cognition do not always agree in sense, for it is incident to words as to their authors to degenerate from their ancestors and to change their manners when they change their country. It is sufficient in etymological inquiries if the senses of kindred words be found such as may easily pass into each other, or such as may both be referred to one general idea. The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered, and by proper attention to the rules of derivation the orthography was soon adjusted. But to collect the words of our language was a task of greater difficulty. The deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent, and when they were exhausted what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find or chance should offer it in the boundless chaos of a living speech. My search, however, has been either skillful or lucky, for I have much augmented the vocabulary. As my design was a dictionary common or appellative, I have omitted all words which have relation to proper names, such as Arian, Sosinian, Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometin, but have retained those of a more general nature, as heathen, pagan, of the terms of art I had received such as could be found either in books of science or technical dictionaries, and have often inserted from philosophical writers words which are supported perhaps only by a single authority and which being not admitted into general use stand yet as candidates or probationers and must depend for their adoption on the suffrage of futurity. The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages or ignorance of their own by vanity or wantoness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred though commonly only to censure them and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives. I have not rejected any by design merely because they were unnecessary or exuberant, but have received those which by different writers have been differently formed as viscid and vicidity, vicious and viscosity. Compounded or double words I have seldom noted except when they obtain a signification different from that which the components have in their simple state. Thus highwaymen, woodmen, and horsecorser require an explication, but of thief-like or coach-driver no notice was needed because the primitives contain the meaning of the compounds. Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy like diminutive adjectives in ish as greenish, bluish, adverbs in lee as dully, openly, substantives in nests as vileness, faultiness, were less diligently sought and many sometimes have been omitted when I had no authority that invited me to insert them. Not that they are not genuine in regular offspring of English roots, but because their relation to the primitive being always the same, their signification cannot be mistaken. The verbal nouns in ing, such as the keeping of the castle, the leading of the army, are always neglected or placed only to illustrate the sense of the verb except when they signify things as well as actions and have therefore a plural number as dwelling, living, or have an absolute and abstract signification as coloring, painting, learning. The participles are likewise omitted unless by signifying rather qualities than action they take the nature of adjectives as a thinking man, a man of prudence, a pacing horse, a horse that can pace. These I have ventured to call participial adjectives, but neither are these always inserted because they are commonly to be understood without any danger of mistake by consulting the verb. Obsolete words are admitted when they are found in authors not obsolete or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve revival. As composition is one of the chief characteristics of a language, I have endeavored to make some reparation for the universal negligence of my predecessors by inserting great numbers of compounded words as may be found under, after, for, new, night, fair, and many more. These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use and curiosity are here satisfied and the frame of our language and modes of our combination amply discovered. Of some forms of composition, such as that by which re is prefixed to note repetition and un to signify contrariety or privation, all the examples cannot be accumulated because the use of these particles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited that they are hourly affixed to new words as occasion requires, or is imagined to require them. There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language than perhaps any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a particle subjoint as to come off, to escape by a fetch, to fall on, to attack, to fall off, to apostatize, to break off, to stop abruptly, to bear out, to justify, to fall in, to comply, to give over, to cease, to set off, to embellish, to set in, to begin a continual tenor, to set out, to begin a course or journey, to take off, to copy, with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of these simple words that no sagacity will be able to trace the steps by which they arrived at the present use. These, I have noted with great care, and though I cannot flatter myself that the collection is complete, I believe I have so far assisted the students of our language that this kind of phraseology will be no longer insuperable, and the combinations of verbs and particles, by chance omitted, will be easily explained by comparison with those that may be found. Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth, Phillips, or the contracted dict for dictionaries subjoined. Of these I am not always certain that they are read in any book, but the work of lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, because I had never read them, and many I have inserted, because they may perhaps exist, though they have escaped my notice. They are, however, to be yet considered as resting only upon the credit of former dictionaries. Others, which I considered as useful or known to be proper, though I could not at present support them by authorities, I have suffered to stand upon my own attestation, claiming the same privilege with my predecessors of being sometimes credited without proof. The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered. They are referred to the different parts of speech, traced, when they are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations, and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or striking importance separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation of our language, and here the two neglected or forgotten by English chimerians. That part of my work, on which I expect malignity most frequently to fasten, is the explanation, in which I cannot hope to satisfy those who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I have not always been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a language by itself is very difficult. Many words cannot be explained by synonyms, because the idea signified by them has not more than one appellation, nor by paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot be described. When the nature of things is unknown, or the notion unsettled and indefinite, and various, in various minds, the words by which such notions are conveyed, or such things denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light impedes and distresses it. Things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To explain requires the use of terms less abstruse than that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot always be found, for as nothing can be proved, but by supposing something intuitively known and evident without proof, so nothing can be defined by the use of words too plain to admit a definition. Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtle and evanescent, to be fixed in a paraphrase. Such are all those which are by the grammarians termed expletives, and in dead languages are suffered to pass for empty sounds of no other use than to fill a verse or to modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living tongues to have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as no other form of expression can convey. My labour has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the sense is distorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace them through the maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of utter inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret them by any words a distinct and settled meaning. Such are bear, b-e-a-r, break, b-r-e-a-k, come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn, throw. If of these the whole power is not accurately delivered, it must be remembered that while our language is yet living in variable by the caprice of everyone that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and can be no more ascertained in a dictionary than a grove in the agitation of a storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in the water. The particles are among all nations applied with so great latitude that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme of explication. This difficulty is not less, nor perhaps greater, in English than in other languages. I have labored them with diligence, I hope with success, such at least as can be expected in a task which no man however learned or sagacious has yet been able to perform.