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A Table Alphabeticall
was
the earliest dictionary published in 1604 by the
schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey
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it was the first book with a purely lexical
focus, entirely devoted to an alphabetical word list with
definitions solely in English and on English
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“Teaching the true writing, and understanding of
hard vsuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke,
Latine, or French, &c. With the interpretation thereof by plain
English words”
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Several other 'dictionaries of hard words' would
soon follow in its footsteps
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Cawdrey gives far more thought to his glosses
than his predecessors
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The general style of his approach influenced the
more ambitious dictionary-makers over a century later
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Some of Cawdrey's definitions would be difficult
to better for succinctness in a modern dictionary:
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allude,
to speake one thing that hath resemblance and respect to
another.
circumlocution,
a speaking of that in many words, which may be said in few.
competitor,
hee that sueth for the same thing, or office, that another
doth. |
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Copyrighted material |
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