Editing Nathan Bailey

{{short description|British lexicographer and philologist}}
{{About||the British trampolinist|Nathan Bailey (gymnast)|the American-born Canadian restaurateur|Nat Bailey}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2012}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
'''Nathan Bailey''' (died 27 June 1742), was an [[England|English]] [[philologist]] and [[lexicography|lexicographer]].<ref name="eb1911">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Bailey, Nathan}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Stephen|first1=Leslie|last2=Lee|first2=Sidney|title=The Dictionary of National Biography|url=https://archive.org/details/modictionaryofna14step|date=1908|publisher=Smith, Elder & Co.|location=London|edition=2|chapter=Nathan Bailey}}</ref> He was the author of several dictionaries, including his ''[[An Universal Etymological English Dictionary|Universal Etymological Dictionary]]'', which appeared in some 30 editions between 1721 and 1802. Bailey's ''Dictionarium Britannicum'' (1730 and 1736) was the primary resource mined by [[Samuel Johnson]] for his ''[[A Dictionary of the English Language|Dictionary of the English Language]]'' (1755).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Starnes|first1=De Witt T.|last2=Noyes|first2=Gertrude|title=The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson 1604-1755|url=https://archive.org/details/englishdictionar0000unse_q4m1|url-access=registration|date=1946|publisher=University of North Caroline Press|location=Chapel Hill|pages=[https://archive.org/details/englishdictionar0000unse_q4m1/page/98 98]–125}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Green|first1=Jonathan|title=Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made|date=1996|publisher=Henry Holt & Co.|location=New York|pages=226–286}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Drabble|first1=Margaret|title=The Oxford Companion to English Literature|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00drab_958|url-access=limited|date=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00drab_958/page/n74 59]|edition=6}}</ref>

==Life==
Bailey was a [[Seventh Day Baptist]], admitted 1691 to a congregation in [[Whitechapel]], London. He was probably excluded from the congregation by 1718. Later he had a school at [[Stepney, London, England|Stepney]]. [[William Thomas Whitley]] attributes to him a degree of LL.D.<ref name = ODNB>{{ODNBweb|id=1055|title=Bailey, Nathaniel|first=Michael|last=Hancher}}</ref>

==Works==
Bailey, with [[John Kersey the younger]], was a pioneer of English lexicography, and changed the scope of dictionaries of the language. Greater comprehensivity became the common ambition. Up to the early eighteenth century, English dictionaries had generally focused on "hard words" and their explanation, for example those of [[Thomas Blount (lexicographer)|Thomas Blount]] and [[Edward Phillips]] in the generation before. With a change of attention, to include more commonplace words and those not of direct interest to scholars, the number of [[headword]]s in English dictionaries increased spectacularly.<ref>Green, p. 226.</ref> Innovations were in the areas of common words, dialect, technical terms, and vulgarities.<ref name = ODNB/> [[Thomas Chatterton]], the literary forger, also obtained many sham-antique words from reading Bailey and Kersey.<ref name=DNB>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Bailey, Nathan}}</ref>

Bailey's ''[[An Universal Etymological English Dictionary]]'', from its publication in 1721, became the most popular English dictionary of the 18th century, and went through nearly thirty editions.<ref name=DNB/> It was a successor to Kersey's ''[[A New English Dictionary]]'' (1702), and drew on it. A supplementary volume of his dictionary appeared in 1727, and in 1730 a folio edition, the ''[[Dictionarium Britannicum]]''<ref>'Dictionarium Britannicum, collected by several hands. The Mathematical part by G. Gordon, the Botanical by P. Miller. The whole revis'd and improv'd with many thousand additions by N. Bailey.'</ref> containing many technical terms.<ref name=DNB/> Bailey had collaborators, for example [[John Martyn (botanist)|John Martyn]] who worked on botanical terms in 1725.<ref>''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Martyn, John (1699–1768), botanist, by G. S. Boulger. Published 1893.</ref>

[[Samuel Johnson]] made an interleaved copy the foundation of his own ''[[Johnson's Dictionary]]''.<ref name=DNB/> The 1755 edition of Bailey's dictionary bore the name of [[Joseph Nicol Scott]] also; it was published years after Bailey's death, but months only after Johnson's dictionary appeared. Now often known as the "Scott-Bailey" or "Bailey-Scott" dictionary, it contained relatively slight revisions by Scott, but massive [[plagiarism]] from Johnson's work. A twentieth-century lexicographer, [[Philip Babcock Gove]], attacked it retrospectively on those grounds.<ref>Green, p. 235.</ref> In all, thirty editions of the dictionary appeared, the last at Glasgow in 1802, in reprints and versions by different booksellers.<ref name=DNB/>

Bailey's dictionary was also the basis of English-German dictionaries. These included those edited by [[Theodor Arnold]] (3rd edition, 1761), [[Anton Ernst Klausing]] (8th edition, 1792), and [[Johann Anton Fahrenkrüger]] (11th edition, 1810).<ref name=DNB/>

Bailey also published a spelling-book in 1726; ''All the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus Translated'' (1733), of which a new edition appeared in 1878;<ref>Desiderius Erasmus, ''[https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1854 The Colloquies of Erasmus]'', trans. by Nathan Bailey, ed. by E. Johnson, 2 vols (London: Reeves and Turner, 1878).</ref> 'The Antiquities of London and Westminster,' 1726; 'Dictionarium Domesticum,' 1736 (which was also a cookbook on recipes, including [[fried chicken]]<ref>{{cite news |last=Pereira |first=Alyssa |date=22 June 2016 |url=http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/The-internet-is-losing-it-over-this-18th-century-8318975.php |title=The internet is obsessing over this 18th century fried chicken recipe |newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |access-date=23 June 2016}}</ref>); Selections from Ovid and Phædrus; and 'English and Latin Exercises.' In 1883 appeared 'English Dialect Words of the Eighteenth Century as shown in the . . . Dictionary of N. Bailey', with an introduction by [[W. E. A. Axon]] (English Dialect Society), giving biographical and bibliographical details.<ref name=DNB/>

== List of selected works ==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book|last=Bailey|first=Nathan|title=Dictionarium Rusticum & Urbanicum: Or, A Dictionary of All Sorts of Country Affairs, Handicraft, Trading, and Merchandizing.<!--Containing More Particularly the Whole Art of Gardening, viz. Sowing, Setting, Grafting, Transplanting, Salleting, &c. with the Names, Descriptions, and Uses, of All Kinds of Plants, Flowers, and Fruits. The Raising and Ordering of All Manner of Forest and Fruit-trees, and Dwarfs. Agriculture in the Various Parts of It, and the Modern Improvements Made therein. The Gentleman’s Recreation; or the Arts of Hunting, Hawking, Fishing, Fowling, Ferreting, Cock-fighting, &c. including (besides the Several Animals) the Tackling, Nets and Different Instruments Used therein. The Breeding, Feeding, and Managing of All Sorts of Cattle, as also of Bees, Poultry, and Singing-birds; with All Their Respective Diseases, and Cures. The Preparing of All Sorts of English Liquors, Common Eatables and Drinkables; with the Several Parts of Country Housewifry. The Digging, Refining, &c. of Minerals; Salt, and Sugar-works; and the Arts of Making Brick, Birdlime, Gunpowder, Shot, &c. Merchandizing, Trading, and Handicraft Terms and Instruments. The Produce, Manufactory, &c. of the Counties of England, and of Foreign Parts. The Ancient Customs, and Natural Rarities of England. Illustrated with Cuts of All Sorts of Nets, Traps, Engines, &c.-->|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QiVLAQAAMAAJ|location=London|publisher=Printed for J. Nicholson, at the Kings-Arms in Little-Britain|year=1704|oclc=1063071154}}
* {{cite book|last=Bailey|first=Nathan|author-link=Nathan Bailey|title=Dictionarium Britannicum Or a More Compleat Universal Etymological English Dictionary Than Any Extant|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O50-AAAAcAAJ|year=1736|publisher=T. Cox|location=London}}
{{refend}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography ==
* Jonathon Green, ''Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made'' (1996)
;Attribution
* {{DNB|wstitle=Bailey, Nathan}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=36641| name=Nathan Bailey}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Nathan Bailey |sopt=t}}
* [http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/old-books/Dictionaries/NathanBailey/headwords.html Selected headwords from Bailey's ''Dictionary'', 1736 edition]

==External links==
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[[Category:1742 deaths]]
[[Category:English Baptists]]
[[Category:English lexicographers]]
[[Category:English male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:English non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:English philologists]]
[[Category:18th-century English translators]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]