An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (Dover Language Guides) - Softcover

Skeat, Walter W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486440524 ISBN 13: 9780486440521

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2005

Synopsis

Comprehensive and easy to use, this resource offers numerous cross-references that allow readers to trace English words back to their Indo-European roots. By exhibiting the relationship between English and cognate tongues, it reveals the language's basis in Latin and Greek as well as prior derivations from Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic sources.
Each entry begins with a brief definition and an exact statement of the term's actual (or probable) language of origin. An account of its transition to English usage follows, along with either a few quotations that indicate the period at which the word was adapted, or else the usual Middle-English forms. A helpful Appendix contains a glossary of prefixes, a general accounting of suffixes, a table of Indo-European roots, and vocabularies of homonyms and doublets, in addition to lists showing the distribution of the sources of English.
A standard reference for many years, this volume will prove a practical resource not only to students of comparative philology and of early English, but to everyone with an interest in the origin, history, and development of the English language.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0486440524
• ISBN 13: 9780486440521
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 832