Word Meaning in the Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language Answers

Read the excerpt from Samuel Johnson's preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.From the authours which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed.It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined as that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenour of the sentence; such passages I have therefore chosen.

Read the sentence from Samuel Johnson's preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.I have studiously endeavoured to collect examples and authorities from the writers before the restoration, whose works I regard as the wells of English undefiled, as the pure sources of genuine diction.

Read the excerpts from Samuel Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.Which statement best describes Johnson’s treatment of the underlined word?

Which statements describe Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language? Check all that apply.

Read the excerpts from Samuel Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.Thus have I laboured by settling the orthography, displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations.

Read the sentence from Samuel Johnson's preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.Wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety.

Which word has a negative connotation?

Read the excerpt from Samuel Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects, must be sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses of each word, and ranged according to the time of their authours.When first I collected these authorities, I was desirous that every quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of science; from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes; from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful descriptions.

Read the sentence from Samuel Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated.

Read the sentence from Samuel Johnson's preface to A Dictionary of the English Language.It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise.