Walter William Skeat  

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"The identification of the hand of glory with the mandrake is clinched by the statement in Cockayne's Leechdoms, i. 245, that the mandrake "shineth by night altogether like a lamp.""--Notes on English etymology; chiefly reprinted from the Transactions of the Philological society (1901) by Walter William Skeat

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Walter William Skeat (21 November 1835 – 1912), English philologist known for such work as his list of proto-Indo-European roots.

Contents

Work

Etymology, lexicography, and place-name studies

In pure philology, Skeat's principal achievement was his An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (4 parts, 1879–1882; rev., and enlarged, 1910). While preparing the dictionary, he wrote hundreds of short articles on word origins for the London-based journal Notes and Queries.

Skeat also coined the term ghost word and was a leading expert in this subject. Skeat was also a pioneer of place-name studies. His major publications in this field include:

  • A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (1888), in conjunction with Anthony Lawson Mayhew
  • "A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words" (1914) with A. L. Mayhew
  • The place-names of Cambridgeshire (1901)
  • Place-names of Huntingdonshire (1902)
  • Place-names of Hertfordshire (1904)
  • Place-names of Bedfordshire (1906)
  • Place-names of Berkshire (1911)
  • Place-names of Suffolk (1913)

Editions

Skeat edited works for the Early English Text Society:

For the Scottish Text Society:

  • Skeat edited The Kingis Quair,
  • Skeat published an edition (2 vols., 1871) of Chatterton, with an investigation of the sources of the obsolete words used by Chatterton.
  • Skeat published an edition of Chaucer in one volume for general readers
  • Skeat published an edition of Chaucer's A Treatise on the Astrolabe, with an expert commentary.

Skeat produced what is still the main edition of Ælfric of Eynsham's Lives of the Saints;

Teaching

According to A. J. Wyatt, Skeat "was not a great teacher ... he left the teaching to those who had learned from him" – i.e. Wyatt himself and Israel Gollancz – "his teaching was episodic. Yet his lectures were eagerly followed by the fit though few; they were always interesting when least utilitarian, when he forgot examinations and syllabuses, and poured forth from the quaint storehouse of his motley memory things new and old."

Skeat's pedagogical works include:

  • Specimens of English from 1394 to 1597 (1871)
  • Specimens of Early English from 1298 to 1393 (1872), in conjunction with Richard Morris
  • Principles of English Etymology (2 series, 1887 and 1891)
  • A Student's Pastime (1896), a volume of essays
  • The Chaucer Canon (1900)
  • A Primer of Classical and English Philology (1905)

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A Gest of Robyn Hode, A Treatise on the Astrolabe, A. V. Dicey, Adolphus Ward, Ælfric of Eynsham, Alfred Marshall, Alliterative Revival, Almanac, Amrita, Anaconda, Ancient Engleish Metrical Romanceës, Andrew Martin Fairbairn, Anthony Fitzherbert, Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Arthur Balfour, Arthur Evans, Ascension Parish Burial Ground, At Dulcarnon, Auctores octo morales, Authors' Club, Baldock, Beowulf (hero), Bertha Marian Skeat, Beves of Hamtoun (poem), Black, Bladud, British Library, Harley MS 7334, Cavendish (surname), Charles Swainson (naturalist), Christ's College, Cambridge, Confit, Confiture, Cornus, Courtenay Ilbert, Crostata, Crowfield, Suffolk, Cupid, Datuk Keramat, David Monro (scholar), Decanonization, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, Didcot, Donald Mackay, 11th Lord Reay, Doublet (linguistics), Dyfnwal ab Owain, E. H. Visiak, Early English Text Society, Early Modern English, East Midlands English, Edward Byles Cowell, Edward Caird, Edward Maunde Thompson, Ellesmere Chaucer, Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Ely, Cambridgeshire, English Dialect Society, Ethel Skeat, Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, Fitzedward Hall, Flitch of bacon custom, Francis Skeat, Frederic William Maitland, Gazelle, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Clement Boase, George Neilson (historian), George Salmon, Georgina Frederica Jackson, Ghost word, Gothic language, Guillaume de Palerme, Hadleigh, Suffolk, Hafgufa, Haggis, Hand of Glory, Harold Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon, Havelok the Dane, Hector Munro Chadwick, Hengwrt Chaucer, Henry Barclay Swete, Henry Fanshawe Tozer, Henry Francis Pelham, Henry Maxwell Lyte, Henry Sweet, Henry Woods (geologist), Highgate School, Highweek, History of Ilfracombe, Hogshead, Humbug, Ilfracombe, Ingram Bywater, Israel Gollancz, J. B. Bury, James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, James George Frazer, James Murray (lexicographer), James Ward (psychologist), John E. B. Mayor, John Frederick Stanford, John Howard Nodal, John Mirk, John Morley, John Rhŷs, John Robert Seeley, John Shirley (scribe), Joseph Wright (linguist), Julia Kennedy, Kelmscott Press, King's College School, Leslie Stephen, List of English–Spanish interlingual homographs, List of linguists, Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, Ludwig Uhland, Mac Eoin Bissett family, Maccus mac Arailt, Madonna (name), Máel Coluim, King of Strathclyde, Mary Eliza Haweis, Mashallah ibn Athari, Moire (fabric), Mum and the Sothsegger, Nixie (folklore), Notes and Queries, October 1912, Odontotyrannos, Óláfr Guðrøðarson (died 1153), Orange (word), Order of The Canterbury Tales, Oxymoron, Palamon and Arcite, Parlement of Foules, Philological Society, Piebald, Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, Piers Plowman tradition, Piers Plowman, Pity, Pluto (mythology), Richard Claverhouse Jebb, Richard Morris (philologist), Richard Ros, Richard Utz, Robert Flint, Robert Gordon Latham, Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, Robinson Ellis, Samuel Butcher (classicist), Samuel Rolles Driver, Shadworth Hodgson, Simplified Spelling Board, Sir Frederick Pollock, 3rd Baronet, Sir William Anson, 3rd Baronet, Spelter, Stapleford, Hertfordshire, Teetotalism, Termagant, The Book of Fantasy, The Book of the Duchess, The Canterbury Tales, The English Dialect Dictionary, The Floure and the Leafe, The History of English Poetry, The Nut-Brown Maid, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Theodore Cressy Skeat, Thomas Chatterton, Thomas Erskine Holland, Thomas Hodgkin (historian), Thomas Usk, Thomas William Rhys Davids, Toponymy, Tournament (medieval), Ubba, Vietnamese language, Vikings, Vulcan (mythology), Wade (folklore), Waering, Walter William Skeat (anthropologist), Wangford Hundred, Wantsum Channel, Whatfield, Whitley Stokes (Celtic scholar), Whitsun, William Cunningham (economist), William Edward Hartpole Lecky, William Mitchell Ramsay, William Sanday (theologian), Yeomen Warders, Yorkshire dialect, Zodiac





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