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| Liddell and Scott | |
|---|---|
| Name | Liddell and Scott |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | Ancient Greek, Latin, English |
| Subject | Greek lexicography |
| Publisher | Clarendon Press |
| First | 1843 |
| Latest | ongoing editions and digital adaptations |
Liddell and Scott is the standard English-language lexicon of Ancient Greek that has shaped classical scholarship, pedagogy, and translation since the nineteenth century. Originating in Oxford, it has guided readers of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, and many other authors, and has engaged generations of classicists, philologists, and lexicographers across Europe and America.
The lexicon began as a project at University of Oxford in the 1830s under the editorship of Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, with early editions aligning with the textual work of Benjamin Jowett, Richard Whately, and printers associated with the Clarendon Press. The first major edition (1843) emerged amid contemporaneous ventures such as A Latin Dictionary by Lewis and Short, and responded to evolving scholarship from figures like August Boeckh, Karl Wilhelm Göttling, and Franz Passow. Subsequent editions incorporated research by editors connected to institutions including Balliol College, Oxford, Christ Church, Oxford, British Museum, Bodleian Library, and the British Academy. The monumental ninth edition and later supplements reflected contributions influenced by excavations at Pompeii and discoveries published in journals like Journal of Philology and Philologus, while twentieth-century revisions engaged linguists from University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, and University of Berlin.
Principal compilers included Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and later editors such as Henry Stuart Jones, Roderick McKenzie, E.A. Barber, and H.G. Evelyn-White. Scholarly contributors ranged from classicists like J.B. Lightfoot, Friedrich Blass, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ernest Gardner, and Eduard Schwartz to papyrologists such as Bruno Bleckmann and Bernard Grenfell. Lexical entries were informed by readings from editors and collators including John William Donaldson, William Mitchell Ramsay, A.E. Housman, Richard Claverhouse Jebb, David Binning Monro, and E.R. Dodds. Later technical editors and advisors drew on expertise from Carl Darling Buck, George Herbert Palmer, G.P. Goold, Denys Page, Martin Litchfield West, E.R. Dodds, and J.K. Lord.
The lexicon organizes lemmata with citations from canonical authors: Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Theocritus, Menander, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, Lucian, and late authors like Aelius Herodianus and Galen. Entries present morphological paradigms rooted in scholarship from Otto and Hjelmslev-influenced traditions as interpreted by editors with philological affinities to August Leskien and Karl Brugmann. The work cross-references inscriptions from collections such as Inscriptiones Graecae, papyri from Oxyrhynchus Papyri, lexica like Suda, and scholia preserved in manuscripts housed in repositories like the Vatican Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Laurentian Library.
Liddell and Scott synthesizes historical, comparative, and textual methods developed in the tradition of Comparative Indo-European linguistics led by scholars like Franz Bopp, Jacob Grimm, Rasmus Rask, and August Schleicher. The editors employed citation-based evidence exemplified by Hermann Usener and Hermann Diels, integrating papyrological data from Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt and epigraphic readings championed by Theodor Mommsen and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. Semantic analysis reflects influences from Gustav Kossinna-era philology as well as later semanticists such as J.L. Austin through comparative philological practice. Supplementary glosses drew on work by scholars active in projects like Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and catalogues from the British Museum and Ashmolean Museum.
The lexicon shaped pedagogy at institutions such as Eton College, Harrow School, University of St Andrews, and Yale University and influenced translations by Richmond Lattimore, E.V. Rieu, David Grene, Ian Johnston, G.M.A. Grube, and Robert Fagles. Its authority was debated in reviews in periodicals like Classical Review, Hermes, Classical Quarterly, and Philological Quarterly and critiqued by reformers aligned with Bekkerian textual criticism and proponents of descriptive lexicography such as James Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary. Internationally, the lexicon interfaced with projects at Leipzig, Paris, Berlin, Milan, and Athens Academy, shaping editions of Homeric Hymns, commentaries on Oresteia, and concordances for Pindar.
Recent print and digital initiatives build on the work of Clarendon Press and collaborations with digital humanities centers at University of Oxford, King's College London, University of California, Berkeley, Tufts University, and the Perseus Project. Online incarnations link to corpora such as Perseus Digital Library, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Patrologia Graeca, and databases hosted by Loeb Classical Library and Cambridge University Press. Scholarly digitization leverages technologies developed at Google Books-era projects and research funded by bodies like the Leverhulme Trust and Arts and Humanities Research Council, while open-access tools integrate entries with morphological analyzers from Morpheus (Perseus) and annotation platforms used by Hypothesis.
Category:Greek dictionaries