An English Dictionary, explaining the difficult terms that are used in Divinity, Husbandry, Physick, Philosophy, Law, Navigation, Mathematicks, and other Arts and Sciences. Containing many thousands of hard words (and proper names of places) more than are in any other English Dictionary or Expositor: together with the etymological derivation of them from their proper fountains, whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, or any other Language. In a method more comprehensive than any that is extant.

COLES, Elisha.

Published by Printed for R. and J. Bonwicke, and R. Wilkin. 1724, 1724

About this Item

[340]pp, comprising titlepage, additional titlepage for the 1717 edition, preliminary ad. leaf, 4pp 'To the Reader', double-column main text, and table. 8vo. Signed in fours. Sl. browning, tear to 1717 titlepage repaired with archival tape, sl. water marking to lower corners at the end of the volume. Contemp. full sheep, blind tooled borders; rubbed. Numerous contemp. signatures of Ezekiell Howell; additional signature of William D. Halsey, 1923, on leading pastedown. Alston V 73; ESTC T114052; with the titlepage to Alston V 72 (ESTC T145361) bound in. In 1676, Elisha Coles, c.1640-1680, issued his English Dictionary with brief and generally adequate definitions of around 25,000 words, with some dialect identified by county of use. It was the last of the 'hard word' dictionaries, including translations of foreign words, primarily Greek and Latin. For these traditional entries he relied heavily on The New World of English Words published in 1658 by Edward Phillips, who in turn had plagiarized Thomas Blount's Glossographia of 1656. However, there was an important innovation in that it was the first general English dictionary to include slang expressions. Coles was ingenious; in his address 'To the Reader', he wrote: 'I am no friend to vain and tedious Repetitions; therefore you will often meet with words, explain'd in their Dependence and Relation to one another, and the Sense compleated by taking them together: As for example: Lupa, a She-wolf that nourished Romulus in the / Lupercal, a place near Rome, where they celebrated the / Lupercalia, feasts in honour of Pan, performed by the Luperci, / Priests of Pan'.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: An English Dictionary, explaining the difficult terms that are used in Divinity, Husbandry, Physick, Philosophy, Law, Navigation, Mathematicks, and other Arts and Sciences. Containing many thousands of hard words (and proper names of places) more than are in any other English Dictionary or Expositor: together with the etymological derivation of them from their proper fountains, whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, or any other Language. In a method more comprehensive than any that is extant.
• Publisher: Printed for R. and J. Bonwicke, and R. Wilkin. 1724
• Publication Date: 1724
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)