Excerpt from English EtymologiesTo diversify the dry aspect of a dictionary, I have occasionally introduced some articles of greater length, approaching more nearly to the dimensions of an Essay. Indeed it often happens that in seeking for the origin of a single word, a much wider field of inquiry opens before the eye, and if carefully pursued, ultimately leads to the most unexpected conclusions, bearing upon the history, belief, manners, and customs of primitive times, and sometimes with such a force of evidence as to leave no doubt whatever on the mind of the inquirer of the occurrence of parti culat events, or the existence of peculiar customs, respecting which History is entirely silent - and of the falsity of many things on the other hand that have been handed down to us undoubt ingly in her pages.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.