User’s Guide
The Lexicon is a work in progress. It should be considered provisional and will be expanded as each letter entry is completed.
The lexicon is organised alphabetically.
Each word entry is followed by a pithy descriptor, derived freely from the etymological analyses that follow - eg. Elaborately work(ed) out and fully free(d).
Each entry features linguistic references and etymologies, using the following abbreviations, and giving, in each case, a list of correlates and synonyms in the different languages
AS: Anglosaxon
E = English
F: French
G: German
GK = Greek
HB = Hebrew
L = Latin
ME: Middle English
OF: Old French
OHG: Old High German
S = spanish
SKT = Sanscrit
Etymological roots are indicated by an asterisk - eg. *VAS
The use of etymologies to generate constellations of meanings is poietic rather than scientific. This does not undermine verisimilitude.
In each entry, correlates and other related words are shown in italics at the end of the entry and instances of words that are entries in the lexicon are shown in bold and hyperlinked.
The following three main sources for etymologies are used interchangeably across the entries:
Strong, James. The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890)
Skeat, Walter W. An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1888)
Words refer to things but also to agencies. Words work, they put to work, which is to say they trigger or unclench patterns and sequences of related ideas that can form fabrics of sense, each with their own nap, their structure of warp and weft, their texture and structural properties
The objective of the lexicon is to multiply possible meanings into webs or constellations of sense, rather than to venture any conclusive or singular definition.
The function of ambiguity is pivotal to the semiotic atmosphere produced around each word when it is put into relation with or conjugated by its multiple correlates ansd synonyms.