The New Murrey and Blue blog

Many—maybe even most—of you will know the majority of medieval words at a glance, but I still need to stop and think about far too many….and then I have search in a suitable dictionary. So here are some of the sources I turn to. I know there are a lot more:-

1. Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Vol 1 A-I
   https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=3X4Iybgb0BEC&pg=GBS.PR2&hl=en_GB (excellent)
2. Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Vol II, J-Z
   https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=eMeCIwLKvHYC&pg=GBS.PA480&hl=en_GB (excellent)
3. The Middle English Compendium – https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary (so detailed it confounds me, but might not you!)
4. The Middle English Dictionary- https://archive.org/details/middleenglishdic00stra/mode/2up?view=theater (excellent)
5. Glossary of Medieval Terms – https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/glossary-of-medieval-terms/ (more basic)
6. Common medieval Words and Definitions – https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/medieval-terms-defs (more basic)

And here is an interesting British Library site about the writing of medieval manuscripts: https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2014/06/the-burden-of-writing-scribes-in-medieval-manuscripts.html

But I’ll bet there were times when even medieval folk didn’t know some of the meanings either!

If you know of any more helpful links/sites, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list. There’s always room for more!