Page:The plan of a dictionary of the English language - Samuel Johnson (1747).djvu/17

 physick, as the names of diseases; and in general all terms which can be found in books not written professedly upon particular arts, or can be supposed necessary to those who do not regularly study them. Thus when a reader not skilled in physick happens in Milton upon this line,

––––pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence.

he will with equal expectation look into his dictionary for the word marasmus, as for atrophy, or pestilence, and will have reason to complain if he does not find it.

seems necessary to the completion of a dictionary design'd not merely for critics but for popular use, that it should comprise, in some degree; the peculiar words of every profession; that the terms of war and navigation should be inserted so far as they can be required by readers of travels, and of history; and those of law, merchandise and mechanical trades, so far as they can be supposed useful in the occurrences of common life.

there ought, however, to be some distinction made between the different classes of words, and therefore it will be proper to print those which are incorporated into the language in the usual character, and those which are still to be considered as foreign, in the Italick letter.