The ‘Forgotten’ Language of Middle English Alchemy: Exploring Alchemical Lexis in the MED and the OED

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.