ABSTRACT
In Anglo-Saxon countries even homes that have few books or none at all besides ‘the Scriptures’ possess at least one volume of the sort. The dominant sense of the word dictionary for English-speaking people is a book which presents in alphabetic order the words of our language, with information as to their spelling, pronunciation, meaning and their etymology. In what follows it will hardly be necessary to return to the work of lexicographers in other languages, for the origin and development of English dictionary-making has been but little affected by the lexicography of other countries. Apparently until the sixteenth century no one felt any need for a book which would give English definitions of English words. People were willing to devote considerable labour to the effort to acquire a mastery of English comparable to that of their respected authors.
