ABSTRACT
There is probably no area of classical studies where the student is as apt to relapse into the presumption that the grown-ups know everything as in the area of lexicography. We find an unfamiliar word, look it up in a dictionary, find the translation that seems most appropriate, and feel confident that we know what the meaning of the word is. Amazingly, we will accept from a dictionary even a word that means nothing to us.When Theophrastus1 writes of the γλνος we can see that he means some kind of tree, and we go scurrying to our dictionary to find out more; when LSJ9
informs us that a γλνος is a Cretan maple, Acer creticum, whether or not we have ever seen or heard of a Cretan maple, we feel that we have found out what there is to know, and return happily to reading Theophrastus.
