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| An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction
ISBN: 9780816654086
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Minnesota Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: English language -- Etymology -- Dictionaries;
This work introduces renowned linguistics scholar Anatoly Libermanos comprehensive dictionary and bibliography of the etymology of English words. The English etymological dictionaries published in the past claim to solve the mysteries of word origins even when those origins have been widely disputed. An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology, by contrast, discusses all of the existing derivations of English words and proposes the best one. In this inaugural volume, Liberman addresses fifty-five words traditionally dismissed as being of unknown etymology. Some of the entries are among the most commonly used words in English, including man, boy, girl, bird, brain, understand, key, ever, and yet. Others are slang: mooch, nudge, pimp, filch, gawk, and skedaddle. Many, such as beacon, oat, hemlock, ivy, and toad, have existed for centuries, whereas some have appeared more recentlyaefor example, slang, kitty-corner, and Jeep. They are all united by their etymological obscurity. This unique resource discusses the main problems in the methodology of etymological research and contains indexes of subjects, names, and all of the root words. Each entry is a full-fledged article, shedding light for the first time on the source of some of the most widely disputed word origins in the English language." |
