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Innovate, innovate, innovate – Advances at the DOE in 2013

May 2014

The Dictionary of Old English has published its annual progress report for 2013. The biggest innovation this year: a large number of technological advancements.


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February 2023

Lo! Dictionary of Old English unveils lovely Old English Words in L

The Dictionary of Old English (DOE) 2022 Progress Report has been published. Its most important update concerns word entries beginning with the letter L. The report further details events after the pandemic, including a sad passing, many studious exchanges, and solid financing.
Illustration of Old English words starting with L to commemorate the Dictionary of Old English
Old English words with the letter L in front of a head of the god Woden from a 12th century manuscript


Researchers at the DOE made substantial progress drafting entries for the letter L in 2022. In particular, they have been working on some of L’s most “semantically challenging words,” such as the famous interjection ‘lo, behold!’, the high-frequency item land ‘land’ or the polysemous verb lecgan ‘to lay, put, place, set.’ The dictionary volume for La- Le is nearing completion and might be published in late 2023.

The DOE is also preparing an improved version of its corpus. Most importantly, it will include updates to the texts of Old English charters revised with the aid of new editions published by the British Academy.

The DOE 2022 Progress Report also paid tribute to Professor Hans Sauer, who sadly and unexpectedly passed away last year. He contributed important work to the DOE, in particular as chief editor of the 7th century Latin - Old English Épinal-Erfurt Glossary.

In other news, the DOE is working on a proceedings volume of a conference on Old English and Old High German glossography, lexicography, epigraphy, palaeography, and metrics that was co-hosted with the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch in Leipzig, Germany, in 2020. They have announced that Dr. Cameron Laird will help write dictionary entries for Li to Ly as a new two-year postdoctoral researcher. The DOE hosted two visiting doctoral students from the University of La Rioja in Spain. Finally, the report states that financial support continues to be strong, bolstered by several agencies, private donors as well as their successful Adopt-A-Word and Donation Matching campaigns.

Overall, 2022 proved to be another fruitful year for the DOE. Fans of the Old English language have a lot to be looking forward to during the next one!