Medieval Latin Dictionary

The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources is a unique work of historical reference, based upon the largest corpus of named authors and the largest archive of literary, archival, and epigraphic sources anywhere in Europe. It covers not only the usages of the Classical Latin and Late Latin periods (from the beginnings to AD 200 and 200-600), but the entire period of the Middle Ages: the 1100 years from the sixth century to the sixteenth. It records in the standard format of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Latin Dictionary head-words, etymologies, definitions, and quotations that illustrate usage, documenting a complete range from high literary to archival and even demotic registers, incorporating words borrowed from a uniquely wide variety of other languages / Greek, Semitic, Celtic, Germanic, and Romance. As the Dictionary often illustrates use in Latin of vernacular words hundreds of years before their recorded use in vernacular texts, the work is essential to the study of medieval and modern languages and literatures as well as the long history of Latin. Even before its completion the Dictionary has established itself as pre-eminent, with widely acknowledged usefulness to students of language, literature, history, philosophy, genealogy, music, art and architecture, numismatics, onomastics, topography, and to editors and translators of texts.

Its completion by 2011 by a combination of AHRC and Packard Humanities Institute funding will be an achievement of international importance. The Dictionary will be able to cover specific British vocabularies not dealt with in other editions. It will serve as primary and essential reference volume to the academy.