AN ANALYTICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; IN WHICH THE WORDS ARE EXPLAINED IN THE ORDER OF THEIR NATURAL AFFINITY, Independent of Alphabetical Arrangement; AND THE SIGNIFICATION OF EACH IS TRACED FROM ITS ETYMOLOGY, THE WHOLE EXHIBITING, IN ONE CONTINUED NARRATIVE, THE ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND MODERN USAGE OF THE EXISTING VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE: TO WHICH ARE ADDed, AN INTRODUCTION, CONTAINING a new gramMAR OF THE LANGUAGE, AND AN ALPHABETICAL INDEX, FOR THE EASE OF CONSULTATION. BY DAVID BOOTH. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. only. No more LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. AND C. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE. 1830. 30254. ANALYTICAL DICTIONARY. INTRODUCTION. THE sensations of the mind flow in uninterrupted succession like the waters of a stream; but the greater part flit along without leaving a trace behind, and, in so far, the ever-shifting scene of nature is reflected by an unconscious mirror. When our attention is merely roused, without the overwhelming stimulants of pleasure or of pain, we are said to reflect. We divide the panorama into portions, each of which is termed an idea. These, again, are subdivided into smaller portions, which we call simple ideas. We compare them with one another, and the relative feeling which this comparison excites is termed judgment. But, while this operation is going on, the things themselves, to which we instinctively refer as realities, have passed away, and the ideas that remain-those shadows of a shade-are the objects of our contemplation in the fairy land of Memory. When these ideas sit lightly on the mind, we amuse ourselves with placing them in playful or fantastic combinations; and the new pictures, or images, that are so formed, are said to be the work of Imagination. Hope and Fear, likewise, call in the aid of Imagination to form their phantoms of the future, which, in their turn, elevate or depress the mind. The varieties of thought (or, as they are generally termed, the operations of the mind,) exist solely in the individual; but man is a sociable animal, and loves to communicate with his kind. His laugh of joy and his groan of sorrow excite sympathetic feelings in the breasts of other men; and the pleasure of participation, or the hope of relief, induces him to endeavour, by means of various tones and gestures, to make known the feelings by which he is affected. This may be conceived to have been the origin of language, if it had an origin,-if, as some of our greatest etymologists have believed, man wandered, for a time, upon the earth a speechless savage,-a time in which, we may as reasonably suppose, sheep had not learned to bleat, dogs to bark, swallows to twitter, nor nightingales to sing. |