The Borrowing of Classical and Romance Words into English: A Study Based on the Electronic Oxford English Dictionary

This paper describes a study designed to investigate the effect of Classical and Romance vocabulary on the English lexicon. The study involved a series of computer searches, using the CD-ROM version of the Oxford English Dictionary (1989). Our aim was to discover how many and at what point in time words were borrowed into English from Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The paper describes the general obstacles and limitations — both with the Oxford English Dictionary and the computer searches — that circumscribe our results. We then present our findings, relating them to extant research.