A Thesaurus of Old English
Abstract The Thesaurus of Old English (TOE), first published in 1995, had its origins in a body of slips derived from standard dictionaries, principally the Clark Hall and Merritt Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and the Bosworth-Toller volumes. These slips were made to supply the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus (HT) project (1965–2009) with a firmer idea of the range and totality of Old English vocabulary than available in the OED. In 1976 the decision was taken to deploy the Old English materials as a pilot thesaurus for the HT. With compilation of the slips completed in 1982, researchers were able to begin sorting the slips into groupings based on meaning and to see areas of the HT classification take shape in miniature. The TOE data, absorbed into the larger structure of its parent project, allow us to view English words that disappeared by 1150 alongside those that continued in use.