On the Study of Words

On the Study of Words

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Title: On the Study of Words
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THE STUDY OF WORDS
ON THE STUDY OF WORDS BY RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH,
D.D. ARCHBISHOP
'Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains the
trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future, conquests'
--COLERIDGE
'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!'--SHAKESPEARE
TWENTIETH EDITION revised by
THE REV. A. L. MAYHEW
Joint Author of 'The Concise Middle English Dictionary'
PREFACE TO THE TWENTIETH EDITION.
In all essential points this edition of The Study of Words is the same
book as the last edition. The aim of the editor has been to alter as little
of Archbishop Trench's work as possible. In the arrangement of the
book, in the order of the chapters and paragraphs, in the style, in the
general presentation of the matter, no change has been made. On the
other hand, the work has been thoroughly revised and corrected. A
great deal of thought and labour has of late been bestowed on English
philology, and there has been a great advance in the knowledge of the
laws regulating the development of the sounds of English words, and
the result has been that many a derivation once generally accepted has

had to be given up as phonetically impossible. An attempt has been
made to purge the book of all erroneous etymologies, and to correct in
the text small matters of detail. There have also been added some
footnotes, in which difficult points are discussed and where reference is
given to recent authorities. All editorial additions, whether in the text or
in the notes, are enclosed in square brackets. It is hoped that the book
as it now stands does not contain in its etymological details anything
inconsistent with the latest discoveries of English scholars.
A. L. MAYHEW.
WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD: August, 1888.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
These lectures will not, I trust, be found anywhere to have left out of
sight seriously, or for long, the peculiar needs of those for whom they
were originally intended, and to whom they were primarily addressed. I
am conscious, indeed, here and there, of a certain departure from my
first intention, having been in part seduced to this by a circumstance
which I had not in the least contemplated when I obtained permission
to deliver them, by finding, namely, that I should have other hearers
besides the pupils of the Training-School. Some matter adapted for
those rather than for these I was thus led to introduce--which afterwards
I was unwilling, in preparing for the press, to remove; on the contrary
adding to it rather, in the hope of obtaining thus a somewhat wider
circle of readers than I could have hoped, had I more rigidly restricted
myself in the choice of my materials. Yet I should greatly regret to
have admitted so much of this as should deprive these lectures of their
fitness for those whose profit in writing and in publishing I had mainly
in view, namely schoolmasters, and those preparing to be such.
Had I known any book entering with any fulness, and in a popular
manner, into the subject-matter of these pages, and making it its
exclusive theme, I might still have delivered these lectures, but should
scarcely have sought for them a wider audience than their first, gladly
leaving the matter in their hands, whose studies in language had been
fuller and riper than my own. But abundant and