Concise English Tetum Dictionary

The perfect reference book for everyday use, it provides definitions written in clear, jargon-free language readily accessible to every level of reader.

This 1901 volume of A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language completely updates the classic reference work first published in 1882. Skeat provides a staggering number of words, including those most frequently used in everyday speech and those most prominent in literature. They appear along with their definitions, their language of origin, their roots, and their derivatives. Those who are fascinated with the English language will find much to explore here and many overlooked but interesting tidbits and treasures of an ever-evolving language. Walter W. Skeat was a scholar of Old English, mathematics, English place names, and Anglo-Saxon. He founded the English Dialect Society in 1873 and was a professor at Cambridge University. Skeat edited many classic works, including Lancelot of the Laik, Piers Plowman, The Bruce, Lives of Saints, and a seven-volume edition of Chaucer.

Based on authoritative sources (Fowler, Gowers, Partridge and the Oxford dictionaries), this book is intended for those who would like to be guided round some of the more common pitfalls in the use of English. It is also a practical introduction to the grammar of modern English, grammar being the basis for a proper understanding of what is correct current usage. The compiler, while making a stand against linguistic abuses such as ungrammatical expressions and ugly coinages, circumlocutions and tautology, fashionable metaphors and misuse of technical terms, has an up-to-date attitude to English as a living, developing language, which is constantly changing through usage and the needs of its writers and speakers. Many, often entertaining, examples of both good and incorrect (but frequently found) English support the definitions in the dictionary.

Walter Skeat (1835-1912) was one of the greatest investigators of the roots of the English language, and his remarkable scholarship was instrumental in the revival of the great works of early English Literature. His astonishing detective work into the origins and development of the world's most widely used language provides an unsurpassed guide to its flexibility and richness.