Excerpt from English Etymologies

To 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.

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