Lindsay: An Etymological Study 9 
III. Records 
A, Lists of Words 
1. The English Word List. The purpose of the English 
word list is to indicate the etymological history of each word 
included and the source word from which it is derived, if 
the source word is Latin or Greek. The 10,000 English words 
in Professor Thorndike’s Teacher's Word Book are arranged, 
in alphabetical order, but following each word is a certain 
index number to indicate how frequently it occurred and how 
widely it was distributed among the sources, as compared 
with the other words in the list.® Each word which is among 
the 5,000 words of most frequent occurrence and of widest 
distribution has a second number to indicate which 1,000 
words it falls within, whether among the first 1,000 words 
of very highest frequency or among the second 1,000 of next 
highest frequency, and so on. Each word which is among 
the 5,000 words of less frequent occurrence has following it 
only the index number previously mentioned. This difference 
furnished a convenient basis for division into halves. Ac- 
cordingly the English list is in two parts, one composed of 
the 5,000 words of higher frequency and the other composed 
of the 5,000 words of less frequency. The two halves of the 
English list were prepared by two persons. The statements 
in regard to the list, however, apply equally to both halves 
with two slight exceptions which will be noted later. 
First of all it should be noted that proper names have 
been omitted because of the difficulty in many instances of 
tracing their etymological history. The number and fre- 
quency values of these proper names have been noted, how- 
ever, in the tables of statistics. 
The English word list has been arranged in five columns. 
In column one is each of the English words copied from Pro- 
fessor Thorndike’s Teacher's Word Book. In column two is 
its index number, also copied from the Teacher's Word Book. 
In column three are symbols indicating the etymological his- 
tory of the English word. Columns four and five are blank 
unless the English word is of Latin or Greek origin. If the 
English word is of Latin origin, the intermediate Latin source 
word — if any — is placed in column four and the ultimate 
Latin source word in column five. If the English word is 
® See page vi. Teacher's Word Book, E. L. Thorndike, Teachers College, Columbia 
University, 1921. 
