A Latin Dictionary

"A Latin Dictionary" is a popular English-language lexicographical work of the ancient Latin language, completed in 1879, published by the Oxford University Press, and still widely used by classical scholars and Latinists.

History

The work's full title is " [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Latin_Dictionary A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews' Edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D. and Charles Short, LL.D.] " It is usually referred to as Lewis and Short after the names of its editors Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. It was derived from the 1850 English translation by E. A. Andrews of an earlier Latin-German dictionary, "Wörterbuch der Lateinischen Sprache", by the German philologist Wilhelm Freund. The Andrews translation was partially revised by Freund himself, then by Henry Drisler, and finally edited by Charles Short and Charlton T. Lewis. [See the Advertisement of the book itself, [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Latin_Dictionary available on WikiSource] .]

Interestingly, the division of labor between the two editors was remarkably unequal. Short was solely responsible for the entries beginning with the letter A (216 pages); Lewis was solely responsible for the entries beginning with the letters B through Z (1803 pages). This may account for the more prominent billing Lewis received in the dictionary's title.

The dictionary's full text is available on-line from the Perseus Project. After the Perseus Project released its content in 2007 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, [ [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/help/oldannounce.html Perseus Digital Library, Archived Announcements, November 9, 2007] ] Lewis and Short is freely available for offline consultation, which is facilitated by Diogenes, a free software package for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux platforms. [ [http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Diogenes/ Diogenes] ]

Lewis and Short's "Latin Dictionary" is not to be confused with the "Oxford Latin Dictionary", a more modern lexicon on a similar scale, also published by Oxford and edited by P. G. W. Glare.

Comparison with other dictionaries

Among classicists, Lewis and Short has been largely superseded by the "Oxford Latin Dictionary", called the OLD for short. Lewis and Short incorporated material from existing Latin dictionaries; the OLD, by contrast, started from scratch, following procedures similar to those of the well-regarded "Oxford English Dictionary". Thanks to increased availability of modern editions, the OLD editors had access to a larger variety of classical works. [Mueller, Janel M. "Oxford Latin Dictionary" (review). Modern Philology, Vol. 83, No. 2. (Nov., 1985), pp. 223-225.] Although classicists still consult Lewis and Short, they tend to prefer the OLD.

On the other hand, Lewis and Short remains the standard reference work for medievalists, renaissance specialists, and early modernists. The OLD rarely meets their needs, since it was decided early in the OLD's planning that the work would not encompass works written later than 200 A.D. A few exceptions were made for especially important texts from the late classical period, such as Augustine's "De Civitate Dei", but for periods later than that the OLD is considerably less useful.

In cases where Lewis and Short do not answer a medieval usage question, J. F. Niermeyer's "Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus" often supplies an answer. The "Lexicon Minus" was completed in 1976 by C. van de Kieft after Niermeyer's death, and has since become a standard reference work. [Brooke, C. N. L. "Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus" (review). The English Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 368. (Jul., 1978), pp. 655-656.] More recent editions of the "Lexicon Minus" have corrections and expansions; also, in later editions all words are defined in both English, French, and German, making it of greater international importance than Lewis and Short.

The "Glossarium ad scriptores media et infirmae latinitatis" completed in 1678 by Charles du Fresne (who is commonly referred to as "Ducange" because he held the title "Sieur du Cange") is now rarely used, as Niermeyer's "Lexicon Minus" incorporates most of its information.

In 1890 Lewis published a heavily abridged version of Lewis and Short, entitled "An Elementary Latin Dictionary" for the use of students. Sometimes called the "Elementary Lewis," it is still in print today, and remains a useful reference for students.

On occasion people confuse Lewis and Short (or L&S) with its Greek counterpart, entitled "A Greek-English Lexicon". This book is commonly referred to by the abbreviation LSJ after the names of its editors Liddell, Scott, and Jones.

References

ee also

*William Whitaker's Words

External links

* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059 Browse text at Perseus]
* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=latin Search text at Perseus]
* [http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Diogenes/ Download text] as part of Diogenes
* [http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780198642015 Official home page of print edition] at the Oxford University Press
* [http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199102051 Official home page of the Elementary Lewis] at the Oxford University Press