A Concise Dictionary of Middle English

A Concise Dictionary of Middle
English - From A.D. 1150 To
1580

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English
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Title: A Concise Dictionary of Middle English From A.D. 1150 To
1580
Author: A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat
Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10625]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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DICTIONARY OF MIDDLE ENGLISH ***

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[ Note from the Project Gutenberg post-processor:
This book uses a variety of special characters, some of which are easily
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ð (eth) and þ/Þ (thorn/Thorn) are as-is. Yough is represented as
the two-character sequence 3*.
The special characters æ/Æ (ae/AE) do not have accented forms in the
standard text font, so when accented have been written as æ* and Æ*.
Long marks over Latin vowels have been marked as u*, etc.
End-of-line hyphens present a significant problem in this book, as
many different languages are used, some of which hyphenate many
words. For the most part these end-of-line hyphens have been joined;
on occasion they are marked as -*.
Greek words are transliterated using the standard Gutenberg scheme.
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[Illustration]
A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF
MIDDLE ENGLISH
MAYHEW AND SKEAT A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF MIDDLE
ENGLISH FROM A.D. 1150 TO 1580
BY THE
REV. A. L. MAYHEW, M.A. OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND THE
REV. WALTER W. SKEAT LITT.D.; LL.D. EDIN.; M.A. OXON.
ELRINGTON AND BOSWORTH PROFESSOR OF
ANGLO-SAXON IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
"These our Ancient Words here set down, I trust will for this time
satisfie the Reader.--R. VERSTEGAN, _Restitution of Decayed
Intelligence_, ch. vii (at the end)

"Authentic words be given, or none!" WORDSWORTH, _Lines on
Macpherson's Ossian_
MDCCCLXXXVIII
PREFACE
(BY PROFESSOR SKEAT.)
The present work is intended to meet, in some measure, the
requirements of those who wish to make some study of Middle-English,
and who find a difficulty in obtaining such assistance as will enable
them to find out the meanings and etymologies of the words most
essential to their purpose.
The best Middle-English Dictionary, that by Dr. Mätzner of Berlin,
has only reached the end of the letter H; and it is probable that it will
not be completed for many years. The only Middle-English Dictionary
that has been carried on to the end of the alphabet is that by the late Dr.
Stratmann, of Krefeld. This is a valuable work, and is indispensable for
the more advanced student. However, the present work will still supply
a deficiency, as it differs from Stratmann's Dictionary in many
particulars. We have chosen as our Main Words, where possible, the
most typical of the forms or spellings of the period of Chaucer and
Piers Plowman; in Stratmann, on the other hand, the form chosen as
Main Word is generally the oldest form in which it appears, frequently
one of the twelfth century. Moreover, with regard to authorities, we
refer in the case of the great majority of our forms to a few, cheap,
easily accessible works, whereas Stratmann's authorities are mainly the
numerous and expensive publications of the Early English Text Society.
Lastly, we have paid special attention to the French element in
Middle-English, whereas Stratmann is somewhat deficient in respect of
words of French origin [Footnote 1: A new and thoroughly revised
edition of Stratmann's Dictionary is being prepared by Mr. Henry
Bradley, for the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.] The book which has
generally been found of most assistance to the learner is probably
Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words; but this is not
specially confined to the Middle-English period, and the plan of it

differs in several respects from that of the present work.
The scope of this volume will be best understood by an explanation of
the circumstances that gave rise to it. Some useful and comparatively
inexpensive volumes illustrative of the Middle-English period have
been issued by the Clarendon Press; all of which are furnished with
glossaries, explaining all the important words, with exact references to
the passages wherein the words occur. In particular, the three useful
hand-books containing Specimens of English (from 1150 down to 1580)