Etymological dictionary
An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the OED and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.
Although useful tools, etymological dictionaries must be used with some caution, as research in historical linguistics often renders the etymologies listed in such dictionaries suspect or obsolete. Moreover, some etymologies are controversial, so the editor of an etymological dictionary must decide how much space to devote to covering all theories of a certain word's origin.
Notable examples
- English language
- Hoad, T.F., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford, Oxford University Press (1986).
- Eric Partridge, Origins: A short etymological dictionary of Modern English. New York: Greenwich House (1958, 1959, 1961, 1966).
- German language
- Friedrich Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (first edn. 1883, 21st edn. 1975).
- Ancient Greek
- Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg (1960, 1970). [1]
- Proto-Indo-European language
- Carl Darling Buck, A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages, University of Chicago Press, 1949 (paperback edition 1988).
- Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959).
- Old Irish
- Joseph Vendryes, Lexique étymologique de l'irlandais ancien (first volume 1959; still incomplete), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and CNRC Éditions, Paris.
- Scottish Gaelic
- Alexander MacBain, Etymological Dictionary of Scottish-Gaelic (1896), reprinted (1998) by Hippocrene Books (New York).
- Finnish
- Suomen sanojen alkuperä — The Origin of Finnish Words (first volume, A—K 1992; second volume, L—P 1995; third volume, R—Ö 2000), Helsinki, Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus and Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
External links
- http://etymonline.com the Online Etymology Dictionary
- a bibliography
- etymological databases at Leiden University