The Conventional Start

FIRST IN FACSIMILE ONLY 

Robert Cawdrey. A Table Alphabeticall, conteyning and teaching the true writing, and understanding of hard usuall English wordes. London: Printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for Edmund Weaver, 1604. Facsimile, 1966. 

There had already been bilingual dictionaries and subject-specific dictionaries, but no work before Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall covered words from across the whole language, having both headwords and definitions in English. 

The book defines about 2,500 “hard usuall English wordes,” mostly learned imports from Latin and Greek. It’s the first in a long line of 17th-century hard-word dictionaries. The title page identifies the book’s target audience: “unskilfull persons,” including “ladies” and “gentlewomen.” To benefit the unskillful, he devoted a whole paragraph to explaining alphabetical order. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 7 

IGNITING BONFIRES 

John Cowell. The Interpreter: or Booke Containing the Signification of Words. Cambridge: John Legate, 1607. 

Although Cowell’s Interpreter appeared just three years after Cawdrey’s book, its entries are maturely developed. Cowell defined copiously, gave alternative spellings, cited and quoted authorities, distinguished near-synonyms, and provided cross-references. 

The Interpreter triggered grief and misery. When a few entries were seen as favoring royal absolutism, King James I, trying to placate Parliament, summoned Cowell before the Privy Council. The book was suppressed by proclamation. Accounts vary on whether it was ordered to be burned by the public hangman. Cowell soon died in ignominy. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 9 

VIRTUOUS VERBALISM 

Thomas Wilson. A Christian Dictionarie, Opening the signification of the chiefe wordes dispersed generally through Holie Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, tending to increase Christian knowledge. London: W. Iaggard, 1612. 

The title page of the first ecclesiastical dictionary in English promises a dictionary “to increase Christian knowledge”: if the way to salvation is through the Bible, the way to the Bible might be through a dictionary. 

Combining lexical information with explanations of biblical allusions, Wilson (like Cowell) has a much more bounteous style of defining than can be seen in Cawdrey’s exiguous entries. In enumerating senses, Wilson shows himself to be attuned to nuances in meaning. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 10

SUPERABUNDANT SESQUIPEDALITY 

I[ohn] B[ullokar]. An English Expositor: Teaching the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language. [1st ed. 1616.] London: J.L., 1656. 5th ed. 

In his Expositor, Bullokar borrowed from various sources, including Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall, which led to accusations of plagiarism. But he advanced the category of hard-word dictionaries that would dominate the 17th century. He nearly doubled Cawdrey’s headword count, his definitions were more expansive, and he was the first English lexicographer to mark archaisms (using an asterisk). The English Expositor was durable: new editions appeared into the late 18th century, with a “19th edition” in 1775. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 11

HYPERPOLYGLOT 

John Minsheu. The Guide into the Tongues. London: John Haviland, 1625. 2d ed. 

Remember Minsheu (first case), with his connections to the Spanish Armada? This Guide into Tongues was the first multilingual dictionary with English headwords, surveying 11 languages. To help him, Minsheu employed native speakers of many languages. After securing endorsements from Oxford academics, he became an itinerant peddler of the book throughout England. 

Though he plagiarized with abandon, Minsheu produced a colossal work that successors used for generations. The English headwords have made the book valuable in the study of early 17th-century English. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 12 

PLEASE DEGULATE OUR XENODOCHIE 

H[enry] C[ockeram]. The English Dictionarie; or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words. London: Edmund Weaver, 1623. 

The first entirely English wordbook to use dictionary in its title was published in the same year as Shakespeare’s First Folio. In his preface, Cockeram was unabashedly proud: “What any before me in this kinde have begun, I have not onely fully finished, but thoroughly perfected.” Cockeram adored esoteric terms: his book pullulates with words such as adhabitate “To dwel nigh,” degulate “To consume in belly cheere,” inbulbitate “To befilth one’s breech,” and xenodochie “Hospitality.” 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 13 

IT’S JUST NOT FAIR 

T[homas] B[lount]. Glossographia; or, A Dictionary, Interpreting All Such Hard Words . . . as are now used in our refined English Tongue. London: Printed by Tho. Newcomb for Humphrey Moseley, 1656. 

A lawyer precluded from practice by his Catholicism, Blount wrote the most scholarly general dictionary to date. Innovations include consistently citing authorities and registering etymologies, which he also did in his well-regarded law dictionary. He was besotted with hard words, some of which he might have coined: buxiferous, diventilate, fatiferous, nemorivagant, venustate . . . 

Though borrowing freely from predecessors, Blount was outraged when Edward Phillips and others did the same to him. He railed against “the beggarly half-witted” scholars who “surreptitiously . . . transcribed and mutilated” his work. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 16 

MILTON’S PILFERING NEPHEW 

E[dward] P[hillips]. The New World of English Words; or, A General Dictionary. London: Printed by E. Tyler for Nath. Brooke at the Angell in Cornhill, 1658. 

Privileged? Edward Phillips was tutored by his uncle John Milton. The New World of English Words defined 11,000 words, but it wasn’t as new as its title page promised: Thomas Blount wailed publicly that Phillips’s book was “extracted almost wholly out of mine.” 

Blount’s grievances were mostly justified, even if Phillips reworked and often improved his source materials. But originality counted for little: Phillips won in the marketplace. With eight editions through 1720, Phillips created the 17th century’s most commercially successful dictionary franchise. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 17 

GREATEST ETYMOLOGIST OF HIS TIME 

Stephen Skinner. Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ. London: T. Roycroft, 1671. 

The English Civil Wars drove Skinner overseas, where he studied medicine. Upon returning, he became a physician in Lincoln and embarked on lexicography. While most dictionaries of his day contained only superficial etymologies, Skinner lavished scholarly attention on word histories and explored cognates in Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Danish, and Germanic. He treated nearly 8,000 words, many never before recorded. 

Skinner made it through the Great Plague of 1665, but his luck ran out two years later when a “malignant fever” took his life. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 18 

LEARN THE LOW WORDS, OR ELSE 

E[lisha] Coles. An English Dictionary, explaining the difficult Terms that are used in Divinity, Husbandry, [etc.]. London: Samuel Crouch, 1676. 

The schoolmaster Elisha Coles published a long list of textbooks, turning to dictionaries only in the last five years of his short life. His English Dictionary contained more entries than any comparable dictionary to date—nearly 25,700. He defended his inclusion of low words in practical terms: “’Tis no disparagement to understand the Canting Terms. It may chance to save your throat from being cut, or (at least) your pocket from being pickt.” 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 20