instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be
permanent, like the things which they denote.

In settling the orthography, I have not wholly neglected the
pronunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent upon the
acute or elevated syllable. It will sometimes be found, that the accent
is placed, by the author quoted, on a different syllable from that
marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to be understood, that
custom has varied, or that the author has, in my opinion, pronounced
wrong. Short directions are sometimes given, where the sound of letters
is irregular; and if they are sometimes omitted, defect in such minute
observations will be more easily excused, than superfluity.

In the investigation both of the orthography and signification of words,
their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they were,
therefore, to be divided into primitives and derivatives. A primitive
word is that which can be traced no further to any English root; thus
_circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave_, and
_complicate_, though compounds in the Latin, are to us primitives.
Derivatives are all those that can be referred to any word in English of
greater simplicity.

The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with an accuracy
sometimes needless; for who does not see that _remoteness_ comes from
_remote, lovely_ from _love, concavity_ from _concave_, and
_demonstrative_ from _demonstrate_? But this grammatical exuberance the
scheme of my work did not allow me to repress. It is of great
importance, in examining the general fabrick of a language, to trace one
word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation and
inflection; and uniformity must be preserved in systematical works,