Complete pronouncing medical dictionary : embracing the terminology of medicine and the kindred sciences, with their signification, etymology, and pronunciation ... On the basis of Thomas's comprehensive pronouncing medical dictionary.

  • Joseph Thomas
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Complete pronouncing medical dictionary : embracing the terminology of medicine and the kindred sciences, with their signification, etymology, and pronunciation ... On the basis of Thomas's comprehensive pronouncing medical dictionary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    could be established by some competent authority,—by a national convention of learned men, for example. The question need not be how the Latin language was pronounced by the ancient Romans, but simply how we ought to pronounce those Latin words which have become, so to speak, parts of our own language; and cer- tainly this question need not be difficult to settle. Among the uncertainties which beset the pronunciation of scien- tific terms, one important point — that of accent depending on quantity*—can for the most part be readily ascertained. The prin- cipal rules for Latin accentuation are the following: Rule I.—In trisyllables or polysyllables, if the penultima be long, the accent must fall upon it, as Abdd?neny Duoddnutn, Vesiculdris. Rule II.—If the penultima be short (in words of more than two syllables), the accent must fall on the antepenultima: as, Afidum, Clem'atis, Chimapkila, Erythrox'ylon, Helleb'orus, etc. Rule III.—Dissyllables always take the accent on the penultima: as, Co'ca, Li'quor, Mdtor, etc. It may be observed that whenever the accent of a Latin word falls on the antepenultimate vowel followed immediately by a single consonant, the accent is usually placed after the consonant, and the vowel is made what in English we term short. (See examples under Rule Second.) Accordingly, we pronounce Abdominis— abdom'inis, Asafoetida — asafcet'ida, etc., although in both of these instances the antepenultimate syllable is long in Latin.f The only important exception to this rule occurs in words having it for the * The quantity is determined chiefly by the usage of the Latin poets, and certain recognized rules of derivation. f It is very important to bear in mind the essential difference between a long vowel in English and a long vowel in Latin or Greek. In the former case the word long refers to the quality of the vowel, in the latter always to the quantify. The pronunciation of a long vowel in Latin or Greek is estimated to occupy just twice as much time as is spent in uttering a short vowel. In the present work, however, when the term long is employed in reference to the pronunciation of a word, it is to be understood in the English sense, if the contrary be not distinctly stated.
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