An Early ‘Hard Word’ List: Stephen Batman’s ‘A Note of Saxon Wordes’

In the January 1979 issue of Neophilologus Johan Kerling comments on the glossary of “hard words” that Stephen Batman included in his Batman vppon Bartholome (1582). Kerling believes Batman’s list to be the “earliest printed glossary of old words which actually says that it is a glossary of old w ords” As such, Kerling finds the list interesting partly because it includes words such as decorate, pampination, and vindimiation that, he says, make one wonder what Batman meant by “olde” and “English” words.1