A New English Dictionary : Stead to Stillatim. Edited by
H. Bradley. (Clarendon Press. 2s. M. net.)—The latest part of " Murray," as every habitual user of it calls the great Oxford dictionary, brings near comple- tion the letter " S." As " T " is finished, there will soon remain only the last six letters of the alphabet to be dealt with by Sir James Murray's successors in the editorship. This section records half as many more words as the corresponding part of any other dictionary gives, and has fifteen times as many quotations. We notice that the ingenious derivation of " sterling " from Easterling--suggested by a certain Walter de Pinehobek about 1300, on the theory that Easterling or German moneyers first struck the coin--is rejected ; Dr. Bradley prefers to seek an English, or rather Anglo-Faxon, origin—in " steorling," a coin with a star—for the name of the English currency which had a high reputation abroad as early as 1202, and which would, on this view, have taken the name because the early Norman pennies bore a star,
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