A Latin Dictionary

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A Latin Dictionary is a popular English-language lexicographical work of the ancient Latin language, completed in 1879, published by the Oxford University Press, and still widely used by classical scholars and Latinists.

The work's full title is A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews' Edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D. It is usually referred to as Lewis and Short or L&S, after the names of its editors Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (though the latter designation invites confusion with its Greek counterpart, A Greek-English Lexicon, often referred to by the names of its two original editors, Liddell and Scott).

It was derived from the 1850 English translation by E. A. Andrews of an earlier Latin-German dictionary, Wörterbuch der Lateinischen Sprache, by the German philologist Wilhelm Freund. The Andrews translation was partially revised by Freund himself, then by Henry Drisler, and finally edited by Charles Short and Charlton T. Lewis.

Interestingly, the division of labor between the two editors was remarkably unequal. Short was solely responsible for the entries beginning with the letter A (216 pages); Lewis was solely responsible for the entries beginning with the letters B through Z (1803 pages). This may account for the more prominent billing Lewis received in the dictionary's title.

The dictionary's full text is available on-line from the Perseus Project. Although this dictionary is published by Oxford, it should not be confused with the Oxford Latin Dictionary, a more modern lexicon edited by P. G. W. Glare.

[edit] Comparison with the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon

Comparisons between A Latin Dictionary (L&S) and A Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ) are inevitable. Both are classical lexicons of enduring popularity. Both works originally date to the 19th century, and both continue to be published by the Oxford University Press.

L&S has never been updated, revised, or supplemented since its first edition, perhaps because it has been superseded by the more ambitious Oxford Latin Dictionary. LSJ, by contrast, has gone through nine editions. The ninth edition of LSJ has also been augmented with a supplement that has itself seen a revised edition and that continues to be the subject of active revision. LSJ credits dozens of scholars by name for their contributions to the main text by the time of the 1925 edition; L&S acknowledges only two who aided the original editors by 1879.

Clearly, then, LSJ reflects the fruit of a broader and more sustained scholarly effort, including lexicographic research that continues to the present day. L&S is the product of a smaller 19th-century collaboration without the benefit of later research. The more recent work on LSJ means the two lexicons have different copyright status: portions of LSJ are still under copyright, whereas, since L&S has not been revised since 1879, its text is presumably out of copyright.

The two works are of comparable length (2019 pages for L&S; 2042 pages for the ninth edition of LSJ, with a supplement of over 320 pages). The comprehensiveness of L&S accounts for its continued usefulness; it defines many words that do not appear in other Latin dictionaries. Nevertheless, for purposes of serious scholarship it has been superseded by the Oxford Latin Dictionary, an entirely new project originally proposed by Oxford University Press as early as 1931 (in marked contrast to the longevity of LSJ, whose pre-eminence in Greek scholarship remains unchallenged.)