‘Most of our termes now vsed in warres are deriued from straungers’: Robert Barret’s Glossary of Military Terms inThe Theorike and Practike of Moderne Warres (1598)

Abstract

The first English dictionary of military terms was published anonymously in 1702 under the title A Military Dictionary. However, one glossary of this nature had already been attached to Robert Barret’s (Anon. 1702)The Theorike and Practike of Moderne Warres in 1598: ‘A Table, shewing the signification of sundry forraine words, vsed in these discourses’. Barret had fought in many battles in Europe, where English soldiers came into contact with comrades-in-arms from other countries. Hence, Barret’s glossary constitutes a first-hand source of information on the loanwords used in English to refer to technological and strategic novelties on the field of military science at the time. This article (i) provides a first analysis of Barret’s glossary; (ii) confirms that Barret’s professional expertise as a soldier contributed to more complete and informative definitions than the ones in contemporary general dictionaries; (iii) compares the source languages Barret assigned to the entries in his glossary with the source languages specified in contemporary lexicographical works and in the Oxford English Dictionary; and (iv) confirms the relevance of Barret’s glossary as a testimony to the military jargon incorporated into English from different languages during the sixteenth century. Finally, a close comparison of the definitions of the same entries in Barret’s glossary and Florio’s A Worlde of Wordes (1598) has revealed Florio’s indebtedness to Barret’s military glossary.