The Year of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary

Steve Urkel.

Posted to Diary on Tue Jan 06, 2009 at 04:40:52 PM EST. RSS.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale presents Dr. Johnson's Dictionary:

A word-a-day dictionary from Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (London: Printed by W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, [1755]), one of the first dictionaries to document the daily working life of the English language.

In celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of Johnson's birth in 1709, a definition from the first edition of the dictionary will be posted each day for readers' lexiconic delight, beginning on January 1, 2009. Words will be taken from the annotated proof copy of the first edition, extra-illustrated with Johnson's and his helpers' manuscript corrections, which is held in the collections of Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Abro'ach. adv. [See To BROACH.]
1. In a posture to run out; to yield the liquor contained; pro-
perly spoken of vessels.
The Templer spruce, while ev'ry spout's abroach
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach. Swift's Miscel.
The jars of gen'rous wine, (Acestes' gift,
When his Trinacrian shores the navy left)
He set abroach, and for the feast prepar'd,
In equal portions with the ven'son shar'd.
Dryden's Virgil's Aeneid ,vol. ii.
2. In a figurative sense; in a state to be diffused or advanced; in
a state of such beginning as promises a progress.
That man, that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the count'nance of the king,
Alack! what mischiefs might be set abroach,
In shadow of such greatness! Shakespeare's Henry IV. p. ii.