PREFACE ΤΟ THE TWENTY-SECOND EDITION. ARCHBISHOP TRENCH did a good work for students of English when he prepared this practical and popular discussion of words. Though it makes no claim to being a profound volume, it is sufficiently scholarly to subserve those educational uses for which it was written, and has done as much as any other work of its kind to awaken and foster a genuine interest in the subject treated. First issued forty years ago, the fact that it has already passed to its twenty-second edition, and is taught so extensively in England and America, is a sufficient confirmation of its essential excellence as an elementary manual in word-study. Its main defect, however, is that of method. Though not illogical, it is somewhat unlogical, and needs a more definite and systematic ar rangement. It was to meet such a need that the list of Questions herein printed was prepared for the use of the successive classes at Princeton. It is hoped that those teachers and students who are inclined to use them in the disciplinary work of the class-room may find them of practical value in the better understanding of the author. THEODORE W. HUNT. PRINCETON COLLEGE: Nov. 1891. PREFACE ΤΟ THE TWENTIETH EDITION. IN all essential points this edition of 'The Study of Words' is the same book as the last edition. The aim of the editor has been to alter as little of Archbishop Trench's work as possible. In the arrangement of the book, in the order of the chapters and paragraphs, in the style, in the general presentation of the matter, no change has been made. On the other hand, the work has been thoroughly revised and corrected. A great deal of thought and labour has of late been bestowed on English philology, and there has been a great advance in the knowledge of the laws regulating the development of the sounds of English words, and the result has been that many a derivation once generally accepted has had to be given up as phonetically impossible. An attempt has been made to purge the book of all erroneous etymologies, and to correct in the text small matters of detail. There have also been added some footnotes, in which difficult points are discussed and where reference is given to recent authorities. All editorial additions, whether in the text or in the notes, are enclosed in square brackets. It is hoped that the book as it now stands does not contain in its etymological details anything inconsistent with the latest discoveries of English scholars. WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD: A. L. MAYHEW. In the present edition the work has been thoroughly revised and corrected. The Editor has received many suggestions and corrections (mainly with reference to questions of style and punctuation) from Mr. John Gibbs, of Dublin, to whom he returns his best thanks. The student is recommended to consult the New English Dictionary' (N.E.D.) and the English Dialect Dictionary' (E.D.D.) for further information on words treated in this book. Archbishop Trench's Select Glossary' will also be found to be a very useful companion to The Study of Words.' OXFORD: A. L. M. February 1899. PREFACE ΤΟ THE FIRST EDITION. THESE lectures will not, I trust, be found any. where to have left out of sight seriously, or for long, the peculiar needs of those for whom they were originally intended, and to whom they were primarily addressed. I am conscious, indeed, here and there, of a certain departure from my first intention, having been in part seduced to this by a circumstance which I had not in the least contemplated when I obtained permission to deliver them, by finding, namely, that I should have other hearers besides the pupils of the Training-School.* Some matter adapted for those rather than for these I was thus led to introduce-which afterwards I was unwilling, in preparing for the press, to remove; on the contrary adding to it rather, in the hope of obtaining thus a somewhat wider circle of readers than I could have hoped, had I more rigidly restricted myself in the choice of my materials. Yet I should greatly regret to have admitted so much of this as should deprive * These Lectures were addressed originally to the Pupils of the Diocesan Training School, Winchester. |