10 JULY 1915, Page 23

SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subsegusta review.) The new section of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 5s.) extends from "Trink " to "Turn-down," including 3,176 words, and has boon edited by Sir James Murray. There are scarcely any words of English origin in the section, the large majority coming from Latin either directly or through Frenoh. Of the words with an interesting history included among them, we may mention " Tripos," which meant originally "a bachelor of arts appointed to dispute, in a humorous or satirical style, with the candidates for degrees at Commencement': so called from the three-legged stool on which he sat." The word first appears in this sense in Pepys, and subsequently was applied to the list of successful candi- dates in the examination for a degree, and finally to the examination itself. The longest article in the section deals with the word "Turn," and occupies thirty-six columns. The analysis and arrangement of the hundred and twenty-three main senses in which this word is used occupied the editor for nearly three months.