Customer Reviews

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology

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

 

 

Though the Oxford Etymology is an excellent work, it doesn't read well as a dictionary - being essentially a selection of edited etymological notes from the Original OED. The scholarship is dry, and cryptic... To appreciate this contrast, take a look at the Barnhart Etymology Dictionary, recently re-released as the Chamber's Dictionary of Etymology - with at least three times the material in terms of etymological research and definitions at less than half the price! What's especially useful for American readers is that the Barnhart / Chambers is drawn almost entirely from American sources and scholarship. IF you're only going to buy one etymology dictionary, get the Chambers - but if you're hooked, then the Oxford is an excellent adjunct to the more exhaustive Chambers/Barnhart, balancing the American scholarship with a decidedly UK English orientation.

...or read, or skip from thought to thought with.

The defintions are extremely concise and the etymology section for each word is often also brief. Longer entries occur when a story or individual or specific event is behind the word. Nice and readable printing and a nice, small, thick size. As far as I can tell, this book has not been updated since publication in the sixties; okay by me because words coined since then can be researched using the net.

We have had a copy of the Oxford Etymological Dictionary in our kitchen for past several years because over the dinner table, inevitably, one of our children asks, "where does that word come from?" We were tired of running in and out of the living room to find out. Now it has become a game -- who can come up with a probable root before whoever is looking it up finds the real answer. No, we don't home school. Our children are still young -- 12 and 9. I have occasionally caught my 12 year old just wallowing in this book, and she is normal in every other way.

Don't compromise because something seems a little difficult to access! The more you use it, the more comfortable you'll be with it. This, along with S.I. Hayakawa's Choose the Right Word, are two veritable smorgasbords for word lovers. A good atlas is a good thing to have on hand as well.

This book could be useful for a serious etymologyst, but it is very difficult to decifer unless you are willing to spend hours learning all of the abbreviations. It is organized like a dictionary. The entries give the current dictionary definition of each word, and then proceed to trace the evolution of the word. This evolution is often difficult to understand because of the previously mentioned abbreviations. This book is for a dedicated linguist, or someone with much patience and time

This is a wonderful book of etymology. I don't understand why one person is complaining about abbreviations. If you have an interest at all in etymology, which I assume you do if you bought this book, then you should know F. stands for French, OF stands for Old French, OE, ME, are Old and Middle English, etc. Not hard. I never memorized anything and with no previous training, was quite capable of easily discerning word origins.
And for the guy that couldn't find police roots, what book were you looking in? The entry for police does give an alternate pronunciation, then gives the changes in definition from 16th century to modern times. Then it shows the formation of the word starting with F. back to medL. then to L. politia. Maybe he was confused because it did not show the relation to Greek -polis he seemed to be expecting. While they probably share a root much farther back, this book tends to stop at the Latin or OE root. Because to go any further I suppose you would be talking Indo-European.
I would also like to point out that English does not derive from Latin, that's why it stops at the OE root sometimes. We have borrowed many words from Latin, some which came into our language after the French. If you do not realize this, I suggest you get an introduction to English History. Otherwise, many things in this dictionary will apparently leave you frustrated.
I do not have the other dictionary recommended here. I was given the Oxford one as a Christmas present, and I love it. Certainly, there are not nearly enough words in it for me, but I feel that would be the case regardless. It is well written, and easy to read ,which is a plus as I have terrible eyes. Possibly the other is better, I plan to buy it anyway, because the more the merrier. Also, this ODEE now has a rather smart blue dust jacket, which looks much better than the picture shown here. Without a doubt though, this is the crown jewel of my reference selection.

I am intensely interested in etymology so I purchased the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Unfortunately I was quickly frustrated by the consistent cryptic entries. There are hundreds upon hundreds of abbreviations (literally), and they use the abbreviations liberally in every single entry. The definitions are composed of mostly abbreviations and rarely contain a whole coherent sentence of explanation per word. Even if you took the time to memorize every abbreviation, you would still be baffled by all of the linguistic lingo the book uses, barring the possibility that you ARE in fact a linguist. And to top it off, the entries are riddled with cross-references, meaning that you might have to look up three or four or more different entries to assess the etymology of a single word.
But I haven't given up on etymology just yet. I will resort to the Chamber's Etymological dictionary. This one I know is intelligible and compendious, and I know now that I should have gotten it to begin with. I confess I was duped by the notorious aegis of Oxord.

Go to ETYMONLINE dot com, and give the creator at least half the cost of this book. No cryptic entries there; all words and phrases are traced to their origins, and even compared with other Indo-European langauges like Persian and Sanskrit. All entries being hyper-linked, navigation is so much easier from one word to other related words.

Some P's & C's of this book:

PROS:
Physical copy is always handy
Meanings of words given, just like a dictionary, in addition to their etymology.

CONS:
Entries are abbreviated too much, hence cryptic
Etymology generally not traced to other Indo-European cognates.

I own different dictionaries and by far Oxford dictionary of... is on the bottom.No dictionary is perfect but when I see etymology in title I
expect etymology inside.One example--police;where I expected to see its
roots from Greek,no luck,instead dictionary gives the difference in pronunciation in parts of Great Britain.My wild guess is the authors
are not familiar with term etymology.

I have found this book to be only a supplement to my Webster's College Dictionary. Most of the etymology I am looking for is in my regular dictionary. I have found some slight expansions of the folk influence on words, but basically I check my dictionary first. Fortunately, I used a gift certificate so I didn't pay the full price of the book myself.

Great book if you want brief word history's. Isn't much different than what you can find in many online etymology databases, however, a good investment.