Charles University, LogoThis is an online edition of An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, or a dictionary of "Old English". The dictionary records the state of the English language as it was used between ca. 700-1100 AD by the Anglo-Saxon inhabitans of the British Isles.
This project is based on a digital edition of An Anglo-Saxon dictionary, based on the manuscript collections of the late Joseph Bosworth (the so called Main Volume, first edition 1898) and its Supplement (first edition 1921), edited by Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, today the largest complete dictionary of Old English (one day to be hopefully supplanted by the DOE). Alistair Campbell's "enlarged addenda and corrigenda" from 1972 are not public domain and are therefore not part of the online dictionary.
Please see the front & back matter of the paper dictionary for further information, prefaces and lists of references & contractions.
The digitization project was initiated by Sean Crist in 2001 as a part of his Germanic Lexicon Project and many individuals and institutions have contributed to this project. Check out the original GLP webpage and the old Bosworth-Toller offline application webpage (to be updated). Currently the project is hosted by the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.
In 2010, the data from the GLP were converted to create the current site. Care was taken to preserve the typography of the original dictionary, but also provide a modern, user friendly interface for contemporary users.
In 2013, the entries were structurally re-tagged and the original typography was abandoned, though the immediate access to the scans of the paper dictionary was preserved.
Our aim is to reach beyond a simple digital edition and create an online environment dedicated to all interested in Old English and Anglo-Saxon culture. Feel free to join in the editing of the Dictionary, commenting on its numerous entries or participating in the discussions at our forums.
We hope that by drawing the attention of the community of Anglo-Saxonists to our site and joining our resources, we may create a more useful tool for everybody. The most immediate project to draw on the corrected and tagged data of the Dictionary is a Morphological Analyzer of Old English (currently under development).
We are grateful for the generous support of the Charles University Grant Agency and for the free hosting at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. The site is currently maintained and developed by Ondrej Tichy et al. at the Department of English Language and ELT Methodology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic).
All the data provided here are free for any purpose. If you use the data for academic purposes, we ask that you kindly cite us as your source. In case you need a large portion of the dictionary data or you need it in a specific format, let us know through the contact form, we are happy to do custom database dumps for researchers.
You can cite the entries of the online version of the dictionary, or you can cite the scanned pages of the original paper editions.
Site created by the labour and valour of many,
maintained by Ondrej Tichy and Martin Rocek © 2019.
Generously supported by the Progres (The Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages) grant scheme of Charles University and kindly hosted by the Faculty of Arts, Charles University
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