Coinage

‘How many words will you use today, first used by Thomas Browne in the 17th century?’ asked a trailer on Twitter for Radio 4’s In Our Time. A tweeter called Adam B replied that, of the examples given, ambidextrous, carnivorous and medical could all be found before Browne. He added: ‘I love Browne, will be listening.’ So do I, and I enjoyed the programme.

But I agree that it is no use looking in the Oxford English Dictionary and concluding that words first cited from any author were coined by him. In the dictionary, 4,156 quotations are taken from Browne, 60 per cent from Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), his longest book and I think the most fun. Of these, 771 provide the first evidence of a word and 1,575 the first evidence of a particular meaning.

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The lexicographers found words in Browne because they looked.