CHAMBERS'S
TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY
OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE

PRONOUNCING, EXPLANATORY, ETYMOLOGICAL, WITH COMPOUND PHRASES,
TECHNICAL TERMS IN USE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES,
COLLOQUIALISMS, FULL APPENDICES, AND
COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED

EDITED BY
Rev. THOMAS DAVIDSON
ASSISTANT-EDITOR OF 'CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPÆDIA'
EDITOR OF 'CHAMBERS'S ENGLISH DICTIONARY'

London: 47 Paternoster Row
W. & R. CHAMBERS, Limited
EDINBURGH: 339 High Street
1908

CHAMBERS'S
NEW LARGE TYPE
ENGLISH DICTIONARY
EDITED BY
Rev. THOMAS DAVIDSON
Pronouncing, Explanatory, Etymological
1264 pp. Imp. 8vo, cloth, 12/6; hf.-mor., 18/-
———
"The best one volume dictionary in existence."
W. & R. Chambers, Limited, London and Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

This is the third English Dictionary which the present Editor has prepared, and he may therefore lay claim to an unusually prolonged apprenticeship to his trade. It is surely unnecessary for him to say that he believes this to be the best book of the three, and he can afford to rest content if the Courteous Reader receive it with the indulgence extended to his Library Dictionary, published in the spring of 1898. It is based upon that work, but will be found to possess many serviceable qualities of its own. It is not much less in content, and its greater relative portability is due to smaller type, to thinner paper, and still more to a rigorous compression and condensation in the definitions, by means of which room has been found for many additional words.

The aim has been to include all the common words in literary and conversational English, together with words obsolete save in the pages of Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Authorised Version of the Bible. An attempt has been made also to include the common terms of the sciences and the arts of life, the vocabulary of sport, those Scotch and provincial words which assert themselves in Burns, Scott, the Brontës, and George Eliot, and even the coinages of word-masters like Carlyle, Browning, and Meredith. Numberless compound idiomatic phrases have also been given a place, in each case under the head of the significant word.

Correctness in technical matters has been ensured by consulting such books as Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, Voyle's Military Dictionary, Wilson's Stock-Exchange Glossary, Lee's Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Terms, &c. Besides books of this class, the Editor has made constant use of special books such as Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon, Calderwood's edition of Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy, Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, the Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, Yule and Burnell's Anglo-Indian Glossary, Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, and the Dictionaries of the Bible of Sir William Smith and Dr Hastings.

In Latin, his authority is Lewis and Short; in Greek, Liddell and Scott; in Romance Philology, Diez and Scheler; in French, Littré; in Spanish, Velazquez; in German, Weigand and Flügel; in Gaelic, Macleod and Dewar, and M'Bain; in Hebrew, Gesenius.

In English etymology the Editor has consulted Professor Skeat's Dictionary and his Principles of English Etymology—First and Second Series; the magistral New English Dictionary of Dr James A. H. Murray and Mr Henry Bradley, so far as completed; and the only less valuable English Dialect Dictionary of Professor Wright (begun 1896).

Two complete American English Dictionaries still hold the first place as works of reference, Professor Whitney's Century Dictionary and Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary.

The Editor has great pleasure in acknowledging his personal obligations to his brothers, the Rev. Robert P. Davidson, B.A., of Trinity College, Oxford, and David G. Davidson, M.D., Edinburgh; and to his equally capable and courteous colleagues, Mr J. R. Pairman and David Patrick, LL.D., Editor of Chambers's Encyclopædia.

T. D.

CONTENTS.

EXPLANATIONS TO THE STUDENT.

The Arrangement of the Words.—Every word is given in its alphabetical order, except in cases where, to save space, derivatives are given after and under the words from which they are derived. Each uncompounded verb has its participles, when irregular, placed after it. Exceptional plurals are also given. When a word stands after another, with no meaning given, its meanings can be at once formed from those of the latter, by adding the signification of the affix: thus the meanings of Darkness are obtained by prefixing the meaning of ness, state of being, to those of Dark.

Many words from French and other tongues, current in English usage, but not yet fairly Anglicised, are inserted in the list of Foreign Phrases, &c., at the end, rather than in the body of the Dictionary.

The Pronunciation.—The Pronunciation is given immediately after each word, by the word being spelled anew. In this new spelling, every consonant used has its ordinary unvarying sound, no consonant being employed that has more than one sound. The same sounds are always represented by the same letters, no matter how varied their actual spelling