Today I worked at cleaning up, sorting, and putting things in boxes for a tag sale – and I found our battered and really old dictionary (as opposed to the 1881 one we also own – see the “language” category.

It’s an odd size – nearly square – battered, leather-bound, and missing a bunch of pages at the beginning and end.  The pages are seriously discolored, and I think there used to be lettering on the spine.  It’s quite thick – I have a little under 500 of the pages.  It seems to have belonged to at least two schoolchildren: The inside cover is inscribed “Amy Kirbys Book New Y….k” and page 27 (now the first page) has “C. H. Manning M. Y. D.” written along the bottom.  The back cover has “Thomas” written with an elaborately curlicued “T.”

And what words did the dictionary editor (anonymous to me, since the title page is missing) think were useful to know?  Let’s see:

Agen, ad. again, in return

Aggeneration, s. state of growing to another body

Aggerate, v. a., to heap up

Agglutinants, s. medicines

Agglutinate, v. n. to unite

Aggress, v. n. to commit the first act of violence

Aggroup, v. a. to bring together into one figure

Agitable, a. moveable

Aglet, s. pendants at the ends of the chives of flowers

Agminal, a. belonging to a troop

Agnail, s. a whitlow

And what’s a whitlow?  According to the 1881 dictionary, “a disease of the nails.” (This damaged dictionary stops at “Transpose.”)

Agnation, s. descent from the same father.

Agnition, s. acknowledgment

Agnize, v. a. to acknowledge

Agnomination, s. allusion of one word to another

Agnus Casus, s. the chaste tree

Google says this is an actual Mediterranean tree.

Agoing, ad. in action

Agone, ad. ago, past

Agonism, s. contention

Agonistes, s. a prize-fighter

Agood, ad. in earnest

Agrace, v. a. to grant favour

Some of these are in the later dictionary, but others are not, and those present sometimes have different definitions. Also notice the British spelling of “favor” as “favour” – that also suggests it’s a notably old dictionary.

I’m so happy that I finally found this book again!