A Dictionary of the First or Oldest Words in the English Language: From the Semi-Saxon Period of A.d. 1250 to 1300

This is not a book you read so much as consult, and yet within its archaic entries lies the raw DNA of English itself. Herbert Coleridge's dictionary captures the language at a pivotal, almost mythical moment: the Semi-Saxon period of 1250-1300, just before Middle English would blossom into Chaucer. Here, English was still fighting for respectability against French and Latin, still shedding the heavy inflections of Old English, still becoming itself. Coleridge meticulously cataloged every word found in the printed English literature of the 13th century, creating an inventory that served as the foundation stone for what would eventually become the Oxford English Dictionary. The preface outlines the Philological Society's grand ambitions: to provide a historical perspective on English vocabulary that had never existed before. This is a work for anyone who has ever wondered where words come from, or who wants to hold in their hands the moment English stopped being foreign and started becoming ours.