A Greek–English Lexicon

"LSJ" redirects here. For other uses, seeLSJ (disambiguation).

A Greek–English Lexicon

Author	Henry George Liddell Robert Scott Henry Stuart Jones Roderick McKenzie
Language	English
Published	1843 (Oxford University Press)
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	Approx. 1,705
ISBN	978-0-19-864226-8
Dewey Decimal	483/.21 20
LC Class	PA445.E5 L6 1996

A Greek–English Lexicon,often referred to asLiddell & Scott(/ˈlɪdəl/)orLiddell–Scott–Jones(LSJ), is a standardlexicographicalwork of theAncient Greek languageoriginally edited byHenry George Liddell,Robert Scott,Henry Stuart Jones,and Roderick McKenzie and published in 1843 by theOxford University Press.

It was most recently revised for its ninth edition of 1940. Abridged versions and a supplement exist. It was initially the basis for the 2021Cambridge Greek Lexicon,although subsequently that became a complete rewrite from scratch.

Liddell and Scott's lexicon (1843–1940)

The lexicon was begun in the 19th century, and is now in its ninth (revised) edition, published in 1940. It was based on the earlierHandwörterbuch der griechischen Spracheby the German lexicographerFranz Passow(first published in 1819, fourth edition 1831), which in turn was based onJohann Gottlob Schneider'sKritisches griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch.TheLexiconhas served as the basis for all later lexicographical work on the ancient Greek language, such as the ongoing Greek–Spanishdictionary projectDiccionario Griego–Español(DGE).

It is now conventionally referred to asLiddell & Scott,Liddell–Scott–Jones,orLSJ,and its three sizes are sometimes referred to as "The Little Liddell", "The Middle Liddell" and "The Big Liddell" or "TheGreat Scott".The LSJ main edition has 116,502 entries.

According to Stuart Jones's preface to the ninth (1925) edition, the creation of theLexiconwas originally proposed byDavid Alphonso Talboys,anOxfordpublisher. It was published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford rather than by Talboys, who died before the first edition (1843) was complete. The second through seventh editions appeared in 1845, 1849, 1855, 1861, 1869, and 1883.

The first editor of the LSJ,Henry George Liddell,was Dean ofChrist Church, Oxford,and the father ofAlice Liddell,the eponymousAliceof the writings ofLewis Carroll.The eighth edition (1897) was the last edition published during Liddell's lifetime.

The LSJ is sometimes compared and contrasted withA Latin Dictionaryby Lewis and Short, which was also published by Oxford University Press (OUP).It is also sometimes comparedwith theBauer lexicon,which is a similar work focused on the Greek of theNew Testament.

The LSJ's definitions reflect theVictorian moralityof its time, using euphemism. For example,χέζω(chezo,'to shit'), is translated as "ease oneself, do one's need";βινέω(bineo,'to fuck') as "inire, coire, of illicit intercourse"; andλαικάζω(laikazo,'to suck cocks') as "to wench".

Condensed editions (1843, 1889)

Two condensed editions of LSJ were published by Oxford University Press and remain in print.

In 1843, the same year as the full lexicon's publication,A Lexicon: Abridged from Liddell and Scott's Greek–English Lexicon,sometimes called "the Little Liddell" was published. Several revised editions followed. For example, a reprint, re-typeset in 2007, of the 1909 edition is available from Simon Wallenberg Press.

In 1889, an intermediate edition of the lexicon,An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon,was prepared on the basis of the seventh edition (1883) of LSJ. In comparison to the smaller abridgement, this "Middle Liddell" contains more entries covering the essential vocabulary of most commonly read Ancient Greek literature, adds citations of the authors to illustrate the history of Greek usage (without identifying the passages), and provides more help with irregular forms.

The Supplement (1968)

After the publication of the ninth edition in 1940, and shortly after the deaths of both Stuart Jones and McKenzie, the OUP maintained a list ofaddenda et corrigenda( "additions and corrections" ), which was bound with subsequent printings. However, in 1968, these were replaced by a Supplement to the LSJ. Neither theaddendanor the Supplement has ever been merged into the main text, which still stands as originally composed by Liddell, Scott, Jones, and McKenzie. The Supplement was initially edited byM. L. West.Since 1981, it has been edited byP. G. W. Glare,editor of theOxford Latin Dictionary(not to be confused with Lewis and Short'sA Latin Dictionary). Since 1988, it has been edited by Glare andAnne A. Thompson.As the title page of theLexiconmakes clear (and the prefaces to the main text and to the Supplement attest), this editorial work has been performed "with the cooperation of many scholars".

The Supplement primarily takes the form of a list of additions and corrections to the main text, sorted by entry. The supplemental entries are marked with signs to show the nature of the changes they call for. Thus, a user of theLexiconcan consult the Supplement after consulting the main text to see whether scholarship after Jones and McKenzie has provided any new information about a particular word. As of 2005,the most recent revision of the Supplement, published in 1996, contains 320 pages of corrections to the main text, as well as other materials.

Here is a typical entry from the revised Supplement:

^xἐκβουτῠπόομαιto be changed into acow,S.fr.269a.37 R.

The small "x" indicates that this word did not appear in the main text at all; "S.fr."refers to the collected fragmentary works ofSophocles.

One interesting new source of lexicographic material in the revised Supplement is theMyceneaninscriptions. The 1996 revised Supplement's Preface notes:

At the time of the publication of the first Supplement it was felt that theVentrisdecipherment of theLinear Btablets was still too uncertain to warrant the inclusion of these texts in a standard dictionary. Ventris's interpretation is now generally accepted and the tablets can no longer be ignored in a comprehensive Greek dictionary [...].

Electronic editions

The ninth edition of LSJ has been freely available in electronic form since 2007, having been digitized by thePerseus Project.Diogenes, a free software package, incorporates the Perseus data and allows easy offline consultation of LSJ onMac OSX,Windows,andLinuxplatforms.Marcionis another open source applicationthat includes the Perseus LSJ.

For mobile devices, both theKindle E-Inkand theiPhone/iPod Touchfeature data ported from Perseus. TheAndroid marketalso currently offers the intermediate LSJ as an offline downloadable app for freeor for a small price.ACD-ROMversion published and sold byLogos Bible Softwarealso incorporates the Supplement's additions to the ninth edition of LSJ. A new online version of LSJ was released in 2011 by theThesaurus Linguae Graecae(TLG). The TLG version corrects "a large number of typographical errors", and includes links to the extensive TLG textual corpus.AKindleversion, the "Complete Liddell & Scott's Lexicon with Inflections", is also available: it allows searches of most Classical Greek word-forms and supports a growing number of Ancient/Classical Greek texts for the device.

Translations

The Lexicon has been translated into Modern Greek by Xenophon Moschos, ed.: Michael Konstantinidis and was published by Anestis Konstantinidis in 1904 with the titleH. Liddell – R. Scott – Α.Κωνσταντινίδου(Μέγα Λεξικόν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Γλώσσης).Reprinted also by other publishers. Also, a supplement compiled by a group of Greek philologists.
An Italian translation of theIntermediate Liddell-Scott,entitledDizionario illustrato Greco-Italianowas published in 1975 byLe Monnier,edited by Q. Cataudella, M. Manfredi and F. Di Benedetto.

Cambridge Greek Lexicon(2021)

LSJ was the basis of the project ofJohn ChadwickandJames Diggleat Cambridge to publish theCambridge Greek Lexiconof 2021. Although it was initially conceived as a mere update of LSJ, the editors eventually decided to start afresh since they considered LSJ "too antiquated in concept, design and content". The CGL has a smaller scope than the LSJ (and also theBrill Dictionary of Ancient Greek), and is unlikely to replace it; however, it is still more comprehensive than the Middle Liddell, which it intends to replace.TheCambridge Greek Lexiconuses contemporary language for its definitions and, unlike the LSJ, no longer elides the meaning of words considered offensive in Victorian times.

See also

• Diccionario Griego-Español
• Comparison of Ancient Greek dictionaries

External links

• Website of the most recent print editionat theOxford University Press(archived 2 December 2008)

Electronic editions

• The Online Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexiconat theThesaurus Linguae Graecae(archived 27 May 2016)
• LSJ at Perseus:Word study tool;Search headwords and English definitions;Browse textBecause it is not easy to computer-typeset breves and macrons in Greek, the Perseus transcription is "α^" for a short Alpha, and "α_" for a long Alpha.
• LSJ at Harvard's Archimedes ProjectArchived5 March 2011 at theWayback Machine
• LSJ at Univ. of ChicagoArchived28 July 2020 at theWayback Machine
• LSJ in wiki format and diacritics insensitive search in Greek and Latin characters
• Modern Greek version of LSJ by the University of the Aegean
• LSJ via the Philologus online interface

Scanned copies of theGreat Scott

• Fourth edition (1855)(archive.org)
• Sixth edition (1869)(archive.org)
• Seventh edition (1883)(archive.org)
• Eighth edition (1901)(archive.org)
• Ninth edition (1940) vol. 1(archive.org)
• Ninth edition (1940) vol. 2(archive.org)
• American edition (1853),ed.Henry Drisler(archive.org)

Scanned copies of theMiddle Liddell

• First edition (1889)(archive.org)