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The ‘Forgotten’ Language of Middle English Alchemy: Exploring Alchemical Lexis in the MED and the OED
Grund, Peter
Grund, Peter
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Abstract
Joining recent studies that attempt to re-evaluate the legacy of alchemy, this article explores the recording of
alchemical vocabulary from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the MED and the OED. By considering labeling
practices in the dictionaries, the alchemical sources that they employ, and principles of inclusion and exclusion, it
shows that the dictionaries give only a partial, inconsistent, and sometimes misleading picture of alchemical
vocabulary in Middle English. I complement this study of the dictionaries with an investigation of an unedited
fifteenth-century codex of alchemical writing, which reveals that numerous alchemical words and meanings remain
unrecorded in the MED and OED.
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This is the author's accepted manuscript. Copyright 2014 Oxford University Press.
Date
2014
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Oxford University Press
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2014. Peter J. Grund. “The ‘Forgotten’ Language of Middle English Alchemy: Exploring Alchemical Lexis in
the MED and the OED.” Review of English Studies 65 (271): 575–595. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/res/hgt097.