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Quotes from A Dictionary of the English Language — Samuel Johnson

1709–1784 England

← All quotes by Samuel Johnson

12 quotes

CLUB — An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

ESSAY — A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

REVENGE — An act of passion; vengeance of justice.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

GRUBSTREET — The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

OATS — A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

PATRON — One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

PENSION — An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

EXCISE — A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Johnson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.