An universal etymological English dictionary: comprehending the derivations of the generality of words in the English tongue, either ancient or modern, from the ancient British, Saxon, Danish, Norman and modern French, Teutonic, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, each in their proper characters
London: printed for E. Bell, J. Darby, A. Bettesworth, F. Fayram, J. Pemberton [and 5 others], 1721. First edition of one of the most influential of all English dictionaries, 8vo, pp. [968]; lexicon in double column, 3A2-3A3 apparently supplied from another copy, light spotting and staining throughout, but generally a very good, sound copy in recent full brown calf. Bailey's An Universal Etymological Dictionary of 1721, which reached a 30th edition by 1802, was the most popular of all dictionaries before Johnson. Notable features include the prominence, and subsequent permanence of the etymological aspect, the inclusion of proverbs, a smattering of cant terms, obsolete expressions, dialect, and equivalents from other languages. It was also the first "universal" dictionary of English, accounting for all words in the language, not just the difficult or specialized ones. See Starnes & Noyes, The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson, chapter 14; Alston V, 94; Kennedy 6211; Vancil, p. 11. Item #64437
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