PREFACE 



best usage; in some words such as " medullary " I have given 

 the accent as it is always spoken, though all the dictionaries, 

 except Henslow's, accent it as " med'ullary." When words have 

 become thoroughly anglicised, it would have been mere pedantry 

 to accent them otherwise ; we say or'ator, not as in Latin, ora'tor. 

 The accent does not imply syllabic division, but when the accent 

 immediately follows a vowel, that vowel is long ; if one or more 

 consonants intervene, then the vowel is short; thus ca'nus, 

 cas'sus, as though they were printed cd-nus, cds-siLs; in a few 

 instances the pronunciation is also given when the word would 

 otherwise be doubtful as to sound. 



It has been my duty to condense the definitions, often a difficult 

 matter when a longer explanation would have been easier to 

 draw up. I trust that I have in each case succeeded in setting 

 out the main or central meaning, but many writers have their 

 own modified or restricted meaning of even well-known terms. 

 To still further economise space, words drawn from the same 

 leading word have been grouped into paragraphs, thus obviating 

 the necessity of repeating the leading word with its meaning 

 many times over, and only requiring the additional root to be 

 given; occasionally this has led to the intentional neglect of 

 strict alphabetic sequence. The names of groups of plants have 

 given much trouble ; whilst all proposed terms manifestly could 

 not be included, many have become so often quoted as to demand 

 recognition ; as a rule I have not admitted groups of even ordinal 

 value, still less of lower rank. Compound terms have been left 

 out when intermediate between the meaning of the primitives ; 

 those included seem to require mention on special grounds. 



The number of recently-coined terms in ecology and genetics 

 will be noted ; I have not included many compound terms, such 

 as '* Carex-Sieversia-Polygonum-Coryphium," or its vernacular 

 equivalent, " The Sedge-smartweed- Alpine meadow formation.** 

 Authors' names in parentheses, following definitions, are those 

 who have been taken as authority for such definition, and when 

 the actual language is used, it is indicated by quotation marks ; 

 the authority sometimes coincides with the inventor of the term. 

 As instances I may mention the use of " creek," " blow-out," 



IX 



