A

DICTIONARY

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE,

FOR THE

USE OF SCHOOLS, AND FOR GENERAL REFERENCE;

WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF

PRONUNCIATION, ORTHOGRAPHY, AND ETYMOLOGY,

FULLY EXPLAINED, AND PRACTICALLY ILLUSTRATED:

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

A VOCABULARY OF SCRIPTURE PROPER NAMES,

ACCENTED AND DIVIDED FOR PRONUNCIATION;

AND

A CONCISE CLASSICAL DICTIONARY.

BY

ROBERT SULLIVAN, A.M.,

BARRISTER-AT-LAW, &c.

DUBLIN:

ALEX. THOM, PRINTER AND PUBLISHER, 87, ABBEY-STREET.

SOLD BY

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, LONDON;
FRASER AND CO., EDINBURGH;

AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

MDCCCXLVII.

PREFACE.

THE great object which the compiler of this work had in view was, to enable the publisher to supply the teachers and pupils of the National Schools in Ireland with a complete dictionary of the English language, at a price commensurate with their humble means. In order to effect this, he saw that it would be necessary to bring the work within the smallest possible dimensions, consistent with its completeness as a dictionary. And this, he conceives, he has effected; for, notwithstanding the smallness of its size, it will be found to contain all the authorized words given in the largest and most recent works on the subject. In fact, it contains between two and three thousand words more than WALKER'S, which has been so long regarded as one of the standard dictionaries of the English language; and though the meanings or explanations of the words have been necessarily abridged and condensed, yet they will be found quite as full as in the standard work just mentioned.

The small, but clear and distinct type, with which the work has been printed, has contributed much to the attainment of the object which the compiler had in view. It is, however, chiefly owing to the simple, but novel plan, on which it has been drawn up, that he has been enabled to combine, in the same dictionary, those very desirable, but difficult, and apparently incompatible qualities, conciseness and completeness. Instead of giving the PRONUNCIATION, and what is called the ETYMOLOGY, of every word, as is usual in our larger dictionaries, he has, by omitting both in the body of the work, economized space to an almost incredible extent. These omissions, which at first view must seem great defects, he has fully supplied in another part of the work, in which will be found, arranged in alphabetical order, all the DIFFICULT and IRREGULAR WORDS in the language, with rules for their pronunciation; and also, almost every thing that is practically useful in etymology, under the head of DERIVATION.

As at least nine out of every ten words in the English language are regular in their pronunciation, that is, are pronounced according to the usual sounds of the letters in the alphabet, it is surely unnecessary to write down the pronunciation of each, as is done in Walker's and SHERIDAN's dictionaries. It is quite sufficient, one would think,