rity
impressed so deep in the English language, that criticism can never wash
them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain untouched: but
many words have likewise been altered by accident, or depraved by
ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been weakly followed;
and some still continue to be variously written, as authors differ in
their care or skill: of these it was proper to inquire the true
orthography, which I have always considered as depending on their
derivation, and have, therefore, referred them to their original
languages: thus I write _enchant_, _enchantment_, _enchanter_, after the
French, and _incantation_ after the Latin; thus _entire_ is chosen
rather than _intire_, because it passed to us not from the Latin
_integer_, but from the French _entier_.

Of many words it is difficult to say, whether they were immediately
received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we had
dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It is,
however, my opinion, that the French generally supplied us; for we have
few Latin words, among the terms of domestick use, which are not French;
but many French, which are very remote from Latin.

Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been often
obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in compliance
with a numberless majority, _convey_ and _inveigh_, _deceit_ and
_receipt_, _fancy_ and _phantom_; sometimes the derivative varies from
the primitive, as _explain_ and _explanation_, _repeat_ and
_repetition_.

Some combinations of letters, having the same power, are used
indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in _choak_,
_choke_; _soap_, _sape_; _fewel_, _fuel_, and many others; which I have
sometimes inserted twice, that those, who search for them under either
form, may not search in vain.

In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of spelling
by which it is inserted in the series of the Dictionary, is to be
considered as that to which I give, perhaps, not often rashly, the
preference. I have left, in the examples, to every author his own
practice unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages, and judge
between us: but this question is not always to be determined by reputed
or by real learning: some men, intent upon greater things, have thought
little on sounds and derivations; some, knowing in the ancient tongues,
have neglected those in which our words ar