Customer Reviews

Elementary Latin Dictionary

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a superb dictionary for the serious student of Latin literature, both intermediate and advanced. There are references to the major works which a student is likely to read, often solving dilemmas in the examples. Yet the size of the entries is manageable in length. If the word is not there, you need Lewis and Short or the Oxford, neither of which is of a size designed to be useful for normal translating and give far more information than one normally needs. It also has an advantage over the paper-back versions. It will lie open on a table or desk As a Latin teacher and sometimes graduate student in Latin, I consider this the most useful dictionary available. And the cost is reasonable.

Okay, so my title is cheesy, but it is wholly accurate. I use this in addition to my Cassell's. This book is invaluable to me because of the references given. It's too bad the quotes within the entries aren't more fully referenced, but this was apparently done to save space.

At first, I found myself paging back and forth simply to find the meanings of words used within other entries. This stimulated my thinking in Latin, and I feel that I learned more quickly. I agree that the absolute beginner might find it too much, but for one who has even a rudimentary base of Latin, it proves to be an outstanding reference.

For many of the quotes used, the English translation precedes it, giving a more solid context of what follows.

And for the price, I would say that it is indispensible. (And the quality of the book is fine, as one would expect from the Oxford Press.) Get the Cassell's first --or another English/Latin dictionary-- then get this one.

For the value, this dicitonary can't be beat. Detailed entries with examples from several authors cover the wide range of meanings that most Latin words can take on. A little more information than the beginning student would need, but for the advanced student, an indispensible tool. The introductory pages which cover various aspects of Roman society (government, development of the language, monetary system, weights and measures, etc...) are interesting and give a good summary of these topics which other dictionaries leave out. All in all, a must-have item on the bookshelf of anyone reading Latin literature.

It's a compact book that covers Classical Latin as well as anything else of like size. It might prove to be a little lost upon beginners--the Latin-Latin, while setting a context and authority, isn't significant to novices. Also, novices enjoy English-Latin sections in their dictionaries, which this lepidus libellus doesn't attempt. Still: little, useful, thorough, cheap!

Content-wise, this dictionary is very comprehensive and useful. However, the print is quite fuzzy, in some places to the point of illegibility.

This Book s not typeset and is an unreadable fuzzy photocopy image of the book
We returned it immediately.

PREFACE

"This is substantially an abridgment of my "Latin Dictionary for Schools" (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1889). The vocabulary has been extended to include all words used by Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Tacitus (in his larger works), as well as those used by Terence, Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, Livy, Nepos, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Phaedrus, and Curtius. On the other hand, space has been saved by the omission of all detailed references to books and passages, only the name of the writer being indicated as authority for each word and phrase; and by limiting the illustrative citations to those which are typical or peculiarly instructive. Proper names, too, have been excluded, except those which, because of peculiarities of form or of their derivations, require special explanation.
In all other respects, the plan of the "School Dictionary", as explained in the Preface to it, has been followed, as far as the smaller size of the present work permits. In a few instances, errors which have been detected in the larger book have been corrected in this; and in two or three words, vowels, which were there left unmarked, are now distinguished as long, on the strength of later researches.
I take pleasure in acknowledging the valuable aid rendered me, in the preparation of this abridgment, by J. W. Marshall, late Professor of the Latin Language and Literature in Dickinson College, by whom most of the illustrative phrases and passages cited have been selected."
Charlton T. Lewis