'A Harmless Drudge'

After reading the February 3 post on “euphonious” words, a reader in the UK writes, “I wondered whether any particular dictionary definitions delighted you.” He adds: “I remember, in my late teens, having to look up the meaning of micturate; I’ve remembered the definition, with amusement, ever since: ‘the morbid propensity to urinate frequently.’” He guessed he had encountered the definition in The Chambers Dictionary but was unable to find it. A general internet search was also futile. 

By happy coincidence, today, February 7, is the 251^st anniversary of the letter Dr. Johnson wrote to Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield. In 1747, Johnson had published his Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, outlining his intentions and methods for preparing the volume. Chesterfield published two anonymous essays endorsing the project. After seven years of almost single-handed labor, Johnson published the Dictionary on April 15, 1755 – without Chesterfield’s promised public patronage.

 

Johnson got his revenge in the Dictionary, where he defines patron as “one who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.” Of course, Johnson also defined lexicographer as “a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.” Plenty of Johnson’s definitions “delight” me, to use my reader’s word. As Macaulay put it, Johnson’s masterpiece is “the first dictionary that could be read with pleasure.” A Johnsonian sampler of delightful words and definitions:

 

Kissingcrust: “crust formed where one loaf in the oven touches another.”

 

Smellfeast: “a parasite; one who haunts good tables.”

 

Thabdomancy (a Sir Thomas Browne coinage): “divination by a wand.”

 

Hector: “a bully; a blustering, turbulent, pervicacious, noisy fellow.”

 

Some of Johnson’s definitions amount to compact moral essays or treatises. Take conscience: “the knowledge of faculty by which we judge of the goodness or wickedness of ourselves.”