the most familiar particles) in the text of each Latin author down to the middle of the 2nd century A.D., and to extract all important passages from all writers of the following centuries down to the 7th; and upon these materials to found a complete historical dictionary of the Latin language. The work of collecting quotations was begun in 1894, and the first part of the first volume has been published.
In the making of all these great dictionaries (except, of course, the last) the needs of the general public as well as those of scholars have been kept in view. But the type to which the general dictionary designed for popular use has tended more and more to conform is the encyclopaedic. This combination of lexicon and encyclopaedia is exhibited in an extreme—and theoretically objectionable—form in the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX e siècle of Pierre Larousse. Besides common words and their definitions, it contains a great many proper names, with a correspondingly large number of biographical, geographical, historical and other articles, the connexion of which with the strictly lexicographical part is purely mechanical. Its utility, which—notwithstanding its many defects—is very great, makes it, however, a model in many respects. Fifteen volumes were published (1866–1876), and supplements were brought out later (1878–1890). The Nouveau Larousse illustré started publication in 1901, and was completed in 1904 (7 vols.). This is not an abridgment or a fresh edition of the Grand Dictionnaire of Pierre Larousse, but a new and distinct publication.
The most notable work of this class, in English, is the Century Dictionary, an American product, edited by Professor W. D. Whitney, and published 1889–1891 in six volumes, containing 7046 pages (large quarto). It conforms to the philological mode in giving with great fulness the older as well as the present vocabulary of the language, and in the completeness of its etymologies; but it does not attempt to give the full history of every word within the language. Among its other more noteworthy characteristics are the inclusion of a great number of modern scientific and technical words, and the abundance of its quotations. The quotations are for the most part provided with references, but they are not dated. Even when compared with the much larger New English Dictionary, the Century’s great merit is the excellent enumeration of meanings, and the accuracy of its explanations; in this respect it is often better and fuller than the New English. In the application of the encyclopaedic method this dictionary is conservative, excluding, with a few exceptions, proper names, and restricting, for the most part, the encyclopaedic matter to descriptive and other details which may legitimately be added to the definitions. Its pictorial illustrations are very numerous and well executed. In the manner of its compilation it is a good example of modern co-operative dictionary-making, being the joint product of a large number of specialists. Next to the New English Dictionary it is the most complete and scholarly of English lexicons.
Bibliography.—The following list of dictionaries (from the 9th edition of this work, with occasional corrections) is given for its historical interest, but in recent years dictionary-making has been so abundant that no attempt is made to be completely inclusive of later works; the various articles on languages may be consulted for these. The list is arranged geographically by families of languages, or by regions. In each group the order, when not alphabetical, is usually from north to south, extinct languages generally coming first, and dialects being placed under their language. Dictionaries forming parts of other works, such as travels, histories, transactions, periodicals, reading-books, &c., are generally excluded. The system here adopted was chosen as on the whole the one best calculated to keep together dictionaries naturally associated. The languages to be considered are too many for an alphabetical arrangement, which ignores all relations both natural and geographical, and too few to require a strict classification by affinities, by which the European languages, which for many reasons should be kept together, would be dispersed. Under either system, Arabic, Persian and Turkish, whose dictionaries are so closely connected, would be widely separated. A wholly geographical arrangement would be inconvenient, especially in Europe. Any system, however, which attempts to arrange in a consecutive series the great network of languages by which the whole world is enclosed, must be open to some objections; and the arrangement adopted in this list has produced some anomalies and dispersions which might cause inconvenience if not pointed out. The old Italic languages are placed under Latin, all dialects of France under French (but Provençal as a distinct language), and Wallachian among Romanic languages. Low German and its dialects are not separated from High German. Basque is placed after Celtic; Albanian, Gipsy and Turkish at the end of Europe, the last being thus separated from its dialects and congeners in Northern and Central Asia, among which are placed the Kazan dialect of Tatar, Samoyed and Ostiak. Accadian is placed after Assyrian among the Semitic languages, and Maltese as a dialect of Arabic; while the Ethiopic is among African languages as it seemed undesirable to separate it from the other Abyssinian languages, or these from their neighbours to the north and south. Circassian and Ossetic are joined to the first group of Aryan languages lying to the north-west of Persia, and containing Armenian, Georgian and Kurd. The following is the order of the groups, some of the more important languages, that is, of those best provided with dictionaries, standing alone:—
Europe: Greek, Latin, French, Romance, Teutonic (Scandinavian and German), Celtic, Basque, Baltic, Slavonic, Ugrian, Gipsy, Albanian.
Asia: Semitic, Armenian, Persian, Sanskrit, Indian, Indo-Chinese, Malay Archipelago, Philippines, Chinese, Japanese, Northern and Central Asia.
Africa: Egypt and Abyssinia, Eastern Africa, Southern, Western, Central, Berber.
Australia and Polynesia.
America: North, Central (with Mexico), South.
EUROPE
Greek.—Athenaeus quotes 35 writers of works, known or supposed to be dictionaries, for, as they are all lost, it is often difficult to decide on their nature. Of these, Anticlides, who lived after the reign of Alexander the Great, wrote Έξηγητικός, which seems to have been a sort of dictionary, perhaps explaining the words and phrases occurring in ancient stories. Zenodotus, the first superintendent of the great library of Alexandria, who lived in the reigns of Ptolemy I. and Ptolemy II., wrote Γλῶσσαι, and also Λέξεις ἐθνικαἰ, a dictionary of barbarous or foreign phrases. Aristophanes of Byzantium, son of Apelles the painter, who lived in the reigns of Ptolemy II. and Ptolemy III., and had the supreme management of the Alexandrian library, wrote a number of works, as Άττικαί Λέξεις, Λακωνικαί Γλῶσσαι which, from the titles, should be dictionaries, but a fragment of his Λέξεις printed by Boissonade, in his edition of Herodian (London, 1869, 8vo, pp. 181–189), is not alphabetical. Artemidorus, a pupil of Aristophanes, wrote a dictionary of technical terms used in cookery. Nicander Colophonius, hereditary priest of Apollo Clarius, born at Claros, near Colophon in Ionia, in reputation for 50 years, from 181 to 135, wrote Γλῶσσαι in at least three books. Parthenius, a pupil of the Alexandrian grammarian Dionysius (who lived in the 1st century before Christ), wrote on choice words used by historians. Didymus, called χαλκένερος, who, according to Athenaeus, wrote 3500 books, and, according to Seneca, 4000, wrote lexicons of the tragic poets (of which book 28 is quoted), of the comic poets, of ambiguous words and of corrupt expressions. Glossaries of Attic words were written by Crates, Philemon, Philetas and Theodorus; of Cretan, by Hermon or Hermonax; of Phrygian, by Neoptolemus; of Rhodian, by Moschus; of Italian, by Diodorus of Tarsus; of foreign words, by Silenus; of synonyms, by Simaristus; of cookery, by Heracleon; and of drinking vessels, by Apollodorus of Cyrene. According to Suidas, the most ancient Greek lexicographer was Apollonius the sophist, son of Archibius. According to the common opinion, he lived in the time of Augustus at Alexandria. He composed a lexicon of words used by Homer, Λέξεις Ὁμηρικαί, a very valuable and useful work, though much interpolated, edited by Villoison, from a MS. of the 10th century, Paris, 1773, 4to, 2 vols.; and by Tollius, Leiden, 1788, 8vo; ed. Bekker, Berlin, 1833, 8vo. Erotian or Herodian, physician to Nero, wrote a lexicon on Hippocrates, arranged in alphabetical order, probably by some copyist, whom Klein calls “homo sciolus.” It was first published in Greek in H. Stephani Dictionarium Medicum, Paris, 1564, 8vo; ed. Klein, Lipsiae, 1865, 8vo, with additional fragments. Timaeus the sophist, who, according to Ruhnken, lived in the 3rd century, wrote a very short lexicon to Plato, which, though much interpolated, is of great value, 1st ed. Ruhnken, Leiden, 1754; ed. locupletior, Lugd. Bat. 1789, 8vo. Aelius Moeris, called the Atticist, lived about 190
