Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Blount, Thomas, 1618-1679.

Blount's Nomo-lexicon : English Law

NOMO-LEXICON: A LAW DICTIONARY

A LAW-DICTIONARY AND GLOSSARY

Blount was a barrister and a member of the Inner Temple, but, as a Roman Catholic, was prevented from practicing at the Bar. Finding some defects with the dictionaries of Cowell and Rastell, he determined to publish what would be a significant improvement. In his preface, Blount humbly and graciously pointed out why he felt his book was needed: for example, Cowell "is sometimes too prolix in the derivation of a Word, setting down several Authors Opinions, without categorically determining which is the true" and Rastell "wrote so long hence, that his very Language and manner of expression was almost antiquated." He was encouraged in his endeavor by the belief that no science had more abstruse terms than that of the Law, and stated that the dictionary will be useful "even from the Coif to the puny-Clerk."

His Nomo-Lexicon was first published in 1670. More elaborate than the Termes de la Ley, this work quickly superseded its predecessors. Blount was the first English legal lexicographer who consistently cited references to authorities consulted, statutes, and treatises (Cowley, lxxxix). The work was reissued in larger and revised editions throughout the eighteenth century. By 1717, editor William Nelson of the Middle Temple added more than 3000 words to the original text, including the laws of the Saxon, Danish, and Norman kings, and borrowing freely from Somner's Lexicon (1659) and Benson's Thesaurus Saxonicus (1701).

Blount was also the author of a general English dictionary, Glossographia, which was for several years the most popular dictionary available. It earned him the credit for being "the first lexicographer of a purely English dictionary to attempt an etymology of words" (Starnes & Noyes, p. 46); he devoted many pages to etymology and described the origins of ancient law customs. It was an important source for the Oxford English Dictionary.

See John D. Cowley, A Bibliography of Abridgments, Digests, Dictionaries and Indexes of English Law, to the year 1800. ( London: Quaritch, 1932).

Bibliography

1. GLOSSOGRAPHIA: OR, A DICTIONARY, INTERPRETING THE HARD WORDS OF WHATSOEVER LANGUAGE, NOW USED IN OUR REFINED ENGLISH TONGUE. 4th ed. [London] In the Savoy : Printed by Tho. Newcomb, to be sold by Robert Boulter at the Turks-head in Corn-hill, over against the Royal Exchange, 1674. CALL # PE 1670 A2 B56 1674
   
   
2. NOMO-LEXICON : A LAW DICTIONARY. [London] In the Savoy : Printed by Tho. Newcomb, for John Martin and Henry Herringman, 1670. CALL # Oversize KD 313 B5 1670
   
   
3. NOMO-LEXIKON : A LAW DICTIONARY. 2nd ed. London : Printed for H. Herringman, T. Newcomb, R. Chiswel, and R. Bentley, and sold by Tho. Salusbury, M. DC. XCI [1691]. CALL # Oversize KD 313 B52 1691
   
   
4. A LAW -DICTIONARY AND GLOSSARY. 3rd ed. [London] in the Savoy : Printed by Eliz. Nutt and R. Gosling ... for D. Browne ... [et al.], 1717. CALL # Oversize KD 313 B52 1717 (Gift of Margaret Batts Tobin, from the library of her father Robert Lynn Batts, UT Law 1886)
   
   

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