be supplied in the train of derivation. In any case of doubt or
difficulty, it will be always proper to examine all the words of
the same race; for some words are slightly passed over to avoid
repetition, some admitted easier and clearer explanation than
others, and all will be better understood, as they are considered
in greater variety of structures and relations.

All the interpretations of words are not written with the same
skill, or the same happiness: things equally easy in themselves,
are not all equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a
long work commits errours, where there appears neither ambiguity
to mislead, nor obscurity to confound him; and in a search like
this, many felicities of expression will be casually overlooked,
many convenient parallels will be forgotten, and many particulars
will admit improvement from a mind utterly unequal to the whole
performance.

But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of
the undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus some
explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as hind, the
female of the stag; stag, the male of the hind: sometimes easier words
are changed into harder, as burial into sepulture or interment,
drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity or aridity, fit
into paroxysm; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can never
be translated into one more easy. But easiness and difficulty are
merely relative, and if the present prevalence of our language
should invite foreigners to this dictionary, many will be assisted
by those words which now seem only to increase or produce obscurity.
For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a Teutonick
and Roman interpretation, as to cheer, to gladden, or exhilarate,