In 1884, the first fascicle of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was published. It had taken 27 years to produce this first part of the dictionary, which was entitled A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, and it would take until 1933 for the work to be completed.
Part 1 included words from A to Ant: 8,365 words of which 6,797 were considered to be “Main Words”. Of the “Main Words”, 1,998 were actually considered to be obsolete in 1884, but the editor felt that they were still worthy of inclusion in the book.
Interestingly, one word which was not included in the dictionary was African. According to the editor, writing in the Preface:
“…the word African was one of the earliest instances in which the question of admission or exclusion arose with regard to an important adjective derived from a geographical proper name. After much careful consideration, and consultation with advisers, it was decided (perhaps by a too rigid application of first principles) to omit the word, as having really no more claims to inclusion than Algerian, Austrian, or Bulgarian.
While I don’t have a copy of the OED in front of me, I thought it might be interesting to explore the history of a few English words from A to Ant. These descriptions below are not from the OED, but have been drawn from a variety of more recent publications.
Admiral: this is one of many words in English which have their origin in Arabic. Long before the European nations had begun to explore the world with their ships, the North African Arabs were involved in maritime trade. The word “admiral” is based on the Arabic “amīr” meaning “commander.” By the 12th century in Sicily, a naval commander was designated as “amīr-al-” meaning “commander of the”. In Medieval Latin and in Old French, the “d” was added. In the 16th century, “admiral” came to be used in English.
Alcohol: this is another word which has come into English from Arabic. The Arabic ancestor of “alcohol” is “kuhl” which referred to the fine antimony power which was used by women to darken their eyelids. Arabic chemists came to use “al-kuhl” to mean “any fine powder produced in a number of ways, including the process of heating a substance to a gaseous state and then recooling it.” The word “alcohol” came into English in 1672 in reference to distilled substances, such as “alcohol of wine.” In time, “alcohol” came to refer to the liquor that contained distilled substances which cause intoxication.
Note: the “al-” in many English words is a clue that they originated in Arabic. “Al-” is the Arabic definite article corresponding to “the” in English. Some of the other words that have come into English from Arabic include “algebra,” “alchemy,” “almanac,” and “alkali”.
Amazon: The popular, but incorrect, etymology of Amazon claims that it comes from the Greek “a-mazos” which means “without a breast.” According to legend the Amazons were women warriors who cut off their right breasts so that they could better shoot a bow and arrow. The historical Amazons upon which the legends were based were probably Scythians, a people in Persia (modern day Iran) who were noted for their cavalry. The first Greeks to have contact with the Scythians were the Ionians. “Amazon” came into Ionian Greek from the Iranian word “ha-mazan” which means “fighting together.” In regular Greek, the word should have been “hamazōn” but the Ionians dropped their “h’s” and thus it came into Greek as “amazōn.”
An: Have you ever wondered why in English we sometimes use “a” as the indefinite article, while at other times we use “an”? “An” comes from the Old English “ān” which means “one” and in early Middle English it was used to represent both the number one and the indefinite article. English underwent some sound changes in which the vowel was shortened and eventually reduced to a schwa (ǝ) and then the “n” was lost before consonants.